The Irish Mafia and the History of Organized Crime

this is one of the United States oldest
organized crime groups hi I’m Rebecca
Brayton and welcome to watchmojo.com and
today we’re speaking with author Darcy
O’Conner about the history and
characteristics of the Irish mafia the
Irish Corsa first arrived in North
America and large numbers after you know
during the great potato famine in the
1840s most of them settled in New York
and Boston but the Canadian wants most
of them settle here in Montreal and the
New York and the Boston Irish gangs were
you know very big and this is starting
at the you know earth the early part of
the 20th century and you had six or
seven competing gangs in New York City
alone they were always at war with each
other
if you saw that film the gangs of New
York it was very true they were often
Ward bosses in cities like Chicago
Kansas City of course in New York in
Boston – and even got you know people
elected alderman and mayors and all
kinds of graft and corruption they also
tended to be in the police force tell us
how the Irish mob differed from other
mafias that were more familiar with like
the Italian mafia the police have told
me that you know the French gangs were
going through a bank and they just said
you know shooting people and stuff like
that they had no finesse is the way when
one cop describes it where the the Irish
tended to plan their their robberies
very carefully or they found instead of
going through the front door and
terrifying people they’d spend all
weekend tunneling under the bank and
into the vault and they had specialists
among them who could open safety deposit
boxes
so they get into the vault and then all
these cherries just waiting to be picked
and so they would be robbing cash
negotiable bonds doing things like that
and that was more their style whereas
the the Italians were more especially in
the early years were more into the
heroin trade and
later the cocaine trade what was the
connection between the Irish mafia and
other crime families or groups the Irish
controlled the Port of Montreal for
several decades any drugs that were
brought in to Montreal through the port
on container ships and so on they knew
exactly which container whereabouts that
was in the ship and so on and so they
then would work hand-in-hand with the
biker gangs and with the traditional
Italian mafia if they wanted to bring
drugs in they could do it through
through the Irish and the Irish would
get a percentage either in money or in
some of the drugs that were brought in
so that’s how they tended to work with
one another
is it still functioning not that much
there are still some young turks around
the irish turks but their heyday really
was in the 1970s through the early 2000s
and the ones that i’ve interviewed for
this book and so on and to be a little
over the hill along the tooth and
they’re the ones of course who never who
didn’t get whacked because a lot of them
did and some of them are still in jail
but there’s a few out here retired bank
robbers if he will safecrackers who I’ve
talked to and they you know they admit
that you know the the good times the big
times were for them and for the Irish
was you know saved 1917 through 2006 or
so thank you very much you’re welcome
enjoyed it