Paddy Whacked: The Untold Story of the Irish American Gangster

Paddy Whacked

The Untold Story of the Irish American Gangster

Featuring
Whitey Bulger, Jack
"Legs"
Diamond, Dean, O'Banion, George
"Bugs"
Moran, Oeney Madden, Vincent
"Mad Dog"
Coll, Mike McDonald, Jimmy Walker, John Morrissey, Buddy McLean, Danny Greene, Mickey Featherstone, Tom Pendergast, Edward
"Spike"
O'Donnell, Jimmy Coonan, Mickey Spillane

T.J. English

FOR
Kate And Patrick

with a knick knack paddy whack give a dog a bone, this old man came colling home…

—Early 20th century children's rhyme

i guess we thought we had to be crazier than everybody else 'cause we were the irish gugs.

—MICKEY FEATHERSTONE,
Westies
hitman

may god have mercy on my soul.

—Last words of DANNY DRISCOLL, co-leader of the
Whyo
Gang, before his execution on January 23, 1888

contents

EPIGRAPH

INTRODUCTION

Part 1: Birth of the Underworld

1.
BLOOD AT THE ROOT

Old Smoke Riseth
•
The First Irish Mob Boss
•
Gangs, Gangsters, and the Women Who Love Them
•
“Hurrah for Big Tim!”

2.
A PERFECT HELL ON EARTH

Shamrocks, Shillelaghs, and Yellow Fever
•
Gambling Men, Wharf Rats, and Ladies of Ill Repute
•
The Policeman as “Gangster”
•
“Who Killa de Chief?”

3.
UP FROM MUD CITY

See Mike
•
The Man Behind the Man
•
Dawn of the Irish Political Boss
•
The First Ward Ball
•
Chicago Gambling Wars

4.
DELIRIUM TREMENS OR NEW CLOTHES ON AN OLD DAME

King of the Rum Runners
•
Owney the Killer
•
When New York Was Really Irish
•
Diamond in the Rough

5.
THE DAGOS VS. THE MICKS

The Merry Prankster
•
Kingdom of the Gangs
•
Big Al’s Better Half
•
Who Killed McSwiggin and Why?
•
Gunning for Bugs

6.
REQUIEM FOR A MAD DOG

“Come and Get Me, Coppers!”
•
Happy Days and Lonely Nights
•
With Friends like These…
•
Playing at a Theater Near You

7.
THE SMOKE-FILLED ROOM AND OTHER TALES OF POLITICAL MALFEASANCE

Revenge of the Goo Goos
•
Kansas City Stomp
•
Fall of the House of Pendergast
•
Reform

Part 2: A Long Way From Tipperary

8.
HARD HATS & HARD MEN

King of the Dock Wallopers
•
You Push, We Shove
•
Cockeye and Squint Get the Chair
•
The Waterfront Commission
•
Corridan’s Legacy

9.
THE PATRIARCH

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Whiskey Baron
•
The Friends of Joe Kennedy
•
All the Way with J.F.K.
•
The Kennedy Double Cross
•
Death to Giovanni

10.
IRISH VS. IRISH

Running with the Mullin Gang
•
Boston Gang Wars, Part I
•
Boston Gang Wars, Part II
•
Whitey Makes His Move

11.
I LEFT MY HEART IN HELL’S KITCHEN

Death and Taxes
•
Back from Vietnam
•
Mad Dog Redux
•
The Wild, Wild Westies
•
Last of the Gentleman Gangsters

12.
LAST CALL AT THE CELTIC CLUB

The Legend of Danny Greene
•
Live by the Bomb, Die by the Bomb
•
The Informer

13.
MICKEY’S MONKEY

Sissy and Edna
•
In the Realm of the Westies
•
The Return of Jimmy C.
•
Settling Old Scores

14.
SOUTHIE SERENADE: WHITEY ON THE RUN

Shadow of the Shamrock
•
The Bulger Mystique
•
The Last Hurrah
•
Old Bones and Shallow Graves

EPILOGUE

SOURCES

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

SEARCHABLE TERMS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

PRAISE

COPYRIGHT

ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

introduction

W
ho would have guessed that in the early years of the twenty-first century—in an era of rampant jihadism and global paranoia—the highest ranking organized crime figure on the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Ten Most Wanted List was neither a Mafia don nor a Latin American
narcotraficante
nor a Russian
mafiya
, but rather an old-style Irish American mob boss from around the way?

During the years of his reign, James “Whitey” Bulger, formerly the kingpin of South Boston, was like a character out of an old Cagney movie—tough but sentimental, kind to his mother, politically connected, and a ruthless sociopath who murdered at least nineteen people. Bulger created a criminal organization based in “Southie” that ruled the roost for over twenty years, from the early 1970s until 1995, when Bulger was tipped off that the Feds were coming to get him and went on the lam. The Age of Bulger transpired during a time when most U.S. citizens probably thought the Irish American gangster no longer existed outside of black-and-white Warner Bros. movies from the 1930s. Bulger not only existed, but he also thrived, making millions of dollars annually through racketeering, killing people at will, and getting away with it through expert manipulation of “the System.” He eluded capture and prosecution in a manner that would have made a Mafia boss like John Gotti weep with envy.

As an Irish American gangster, Bulger flew mostly below the national radar. Certainly in the later decades of what was an unprecedented 150-year run for the Irish Mob, old-style mobsters like Whitey were content to operate in the shadows. Let the mafiosi walk the red carpet, their exploits made larger-than-life by the likes of Brando, DeNiro, and Pacino. Let the Italians come under the scrutiny of the FBI, which during Director J. Edgar Hoover’s administration had denied the existence of the Mafia, but would eventually go after “La Cosa Nostra” with the zeal of a jilted lover. Each headline-grabbing arrest and prosecution of “LCN” made it possible for the FBI and other law enforcement agencies to promote their own exploits, creating a self-fulfilling mythology that was great for the G-Men but not so great for the Italians. With the Mafia dominating the headlines, the Irish Mob soldiered on mostly by staying local, keeping their operations small, and working within underworld parameters that had been in place for more than a century.

Whitey Bulger may have been the last of the last, a man whose staying power was unique to South Boston, but the circumstances of his rise in the underworld were the result of a long and violent history. Like most Irish American mobsters, his power was based in part on two major elements: He had a corrupt FBI agent in his pocket and a younger brother in the State House, Massachusetts State Senator William Bulger. The degree to which Whitey was able to finagle these two factors—the lawman and the politician—was part and parcel of his inheritance as an Irish American gangster.