Timesuck with Dan Cummins - 343 - The Irish Mob

Episode Date: April 10, 2023

Today we dig into the origins and the history of America's Irish Mob.  We begin centuries ago in Ireland, when a series of oppressive, discriminatory laws designed to break the backs of the Irish and leave them too powerless to rebel against British rule, followed by the Great Famine that was greatly intensified by these same laws, led to hundreds of thousands of Irish fleeing the Emerald Isle for America to avoid certain death. Impoverished and often malnourished, these new immigrants were met with an increasing amount of anti-Irish sentiment in the United States, and to overcome this, they ended up banding together and working with gangsters and politicians who would help them get jobs and food in exchange for votes. And thus, the Irish mob was born. Cue 150+ years of underworld violence! We cover SO much territory today. A good one for both the true crime and the history lovers. Hope you like it! Want to apply for the Cummins Family Scholarship fund? Click this link!: https://learnmore.scholarsapply.org/cummins/  Deadline for application is April 24th at 3PM CT. Wet Hot Bad Magic Summer Camp tickets are ON SALE!  BadMagicMerch.com Get tour tickets at dancummins.tv Watch the Suck on YouTube: https://youtu.be/GNCtRyNgyIEMerch: https://www.badmagicmerch.comDiscord! https://discord.gg/tqzH89vWant to join the Cult of the Curious private Facebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" in order to locate whatever happens to be our most current page :)For all merch related questions/problems: [e-mail] (copy and paste)Please rate and subscribe on iTunes and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcastWanna become a Space Lizard?  Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcastSign up through Patreon and for $5 a month you get to listen to the Secret Suck, which will drop Thursdays at Noon, PST. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch. You get to vote on two Monday topics each month via the app. And you get the download link for my new comedy album, Feel the Heat. Check the Patreon posts to find out how to download the new album and take advantage of other benefits.

When the arguments fail, use a blackjack. That was the advice of one Edward Spicodonel, one of the rare breed of gangsters from the probation era to retire from the rackets, maintain his political clout, and incredibly for a gangster of his time, actually die of natural causes. So many of his fellow Irish mobsters would not be so lucky. They were just as violent as he was and oftentimes that violence eventually would come back on them. Existing since the middle of the 19th century when Irish immigrants suffering from famine

and disease began to search for new lives in America and needed all the help they could get in the face of rising anti-Irish sentiment, the Assorbidistreet gangs collectively referred to as the Irish mob, grew and thrived, becoming a force that would help shape America's criminal underworld for centuries. It would also shape a lot of pop culture. From the movies that starred James Cagney, who got many of his mannerisms from the Irish mobsters he knew, like angels with dirty faces, two Martins' corses, he's gangs in New York, to the departed, which won four Academy awards, including Best Picture. Pop culture has been fastened with Irish mobsters for a very long time.

Beginning mainly in New York and Boston, Irish immigrants arrived in droves and often entered the criminal underworld even if they didn't necessarily want to. It was simply what they felt they had to do to survive. Irish bosses who are already established were still offering these new immigrants, food and shelter in exchange for their votes. Simultaneously, ghetto-like conditions gave rise to Irish street gangs, who battled it out viciously with anti-immigrant gangs in early America's urban streets using whatever weapon they had on hand. And some of these weapons will talk about them later.

Dear God, are they terrifying to think about being attacked with? These gangsters were also often goons for hire, happy to smack or whack whoever you wanted for the right price. And then as the Irish rose in cultural prominence, they gained important positions in city government to cross America, often using those positions to protect their own, protect the gangsters that put them into these positions of power.

Corrupt? Yes. But depending on your moral compass, maybe justified in certain cases. The history of the Irish mob is a long one, rife with bloodshed, backstabbing, and more gang wars than you can count. It's also the history of a culture's improbable rise to power in a country that originally

considered them to be borderline subhuman. I've found a lot of similarities between today's topic with the formation of the bloods and crypts and South Central Los Angeles, a topic we examined in episode 318. Oppress a population enough, make them desperate and angry enough, and you've given them a whole bunch of incentive to leave the law behind in order to survive and sometimes thrive by any means necessary. The story of the Irish mob is sometimes inspiring, sometimes horrifying, oftentimes stomach turning, and I'm excited for you to hear it.

The Irish mob on today's bloodiest fuck, rags to riches, who do you think you're talking to? Do you know who the fuck I am? Do not make me grab my brick bat edition of Time Suck. This is Michael McDonald and you to the cult of the curious. I'm Dan Cummins, a master sucker, Saturday morning cartoon pitchman, personal revelation skeptic, and you are listing the time suck. The Burn It All Down tour will be over by the time this comes out.

Thanks again to everyone who bought a ticket, truly. I hope you buy more in the future. Now that I got a little taste of headlining the theater tour, theater tour, I want more. Such a great way to present material, especially when it's often long form and sometimes absurd stories. Need that extra bit of focus for the audience, the theater allows. Now when this comes out, folks, you know, I'm building a brand new act in the clubs, which are also very fun, I've been writing so many new possibilities, kicking off new shows in Phoenix, April 21st and 22nd, and stand up live, then it's May 4th, 5th and 6th, and Bloomington, Indiana at the Comedy Attic, and then May 11th, 12th and 13th in Madison, Wisconsin, Comedy on State. So, dncomas.tv for tickets, also had a blast in New Orleans and Philadelphia,

and had something happen in Philly that has never happened to me before and over two decades of standup, had to stop the show because I literally almost killed somebody. Kind of not kidding. During the show, someone in the audience had a heart attack, full cardiac arrest, stopped breathing.

Thank God, beautiful meat sack, Marlena Luzby, ER nurse, and fan was there, spring into action, went full hero, and got this man breathing again. All I know is that he was stabilized at the hospital later, the ambulance was there within five minutes of being called. So, kudos to the EMTs. Marlena, you literally saved this person's life. If anyone knows what happened to this guy after being stabilized, please email us,

Bojangles at TimesLookPodcast.com. And we would also like to be able to update Marlena. Hail Marlena! You hero. I also met several fans and Philly who are heading to summer camp this year in Pennsylvania. If you want to join them, the September 21st through the 24th in northern Pennsylvania, an all inclusive adult summer camp.

With an open bar, life-scared to death, life-stand-up show with me, Chad Daniels, Kelsey Cook, who's killing it right now with their new special. And more, you can stay overnight in modern camp lodging set on a beautiful private lake. So many activities, just go to badmagicmerch.com,

scroll down to the WEDHOD Bad Magic Summer Camp banner. Check out the fact page if you got questions. Watch the promo video. Get excited and get the info you need. Last thing, also at BadMagicMarch.com, a new collection. The Family Jewels collection, darling. Grandest greetings, clock Rockefeller here, to promote the newest luxury collection inspired by the time-so-gibberish on me,

of the one and only clock Rockefeller. May of pure diamonds and gold. This opulent collection is fit only for friends of say a France client or Andy Warhol. Of course me, Clark Rockefeller, a juice from a golden diamond and crusted time suck logo accompanied with a dazzling selection of ten zanyan diamonds, a luxury designed pattern backpack, and a designer can holder for those peach mobile martini nights. It'll simply be grand darling. Head over to BadMagicMurts.com today and now on to a topic. Our Patreon space letters have voted in. The Irish

mob was supposed to release it last week but we just had too much Jeffrey Lungren to talk about. Gonna be way less poop this week. Feel like we already hit our poop quota for all of 2023 with the Lungren two-parter. No one this week is gonna suffer quite like Skidmark, but there will be so much suffering. These guys were so violent and insane, and it's such a big subject. The Irish mob dates back all the way to the 1840s in America.

So many notable figures came up in the Irish American Underworld. So many people that vied for their little slice of the American dream through less than legal means. And we're going to meet a lot of them today. A lot of people you would have been wise to never, ever cross had you ran into them. We're also going to be immersed in the world of Ireland. We've been to Ireland a few times here in the suck first, most notably on our in our suck on Celtic mythology.

But rather than the world of myths and legends today, we're dealing with some very concrete, less than ideal often times realities. Not the kind of realities we explored on our suck about Jameson's whiskey though. No cannibalism in this story, alleged or otherwise. No poop, no cannibalism. So I have to really bum's you out. Today in Ireland, we'll be looking at what life was like for the average Irish immigrant coming into the US in the middle of the 19th century. In that way, today's

episode, in addition to being spiritually related to the bloods and cryptsuck, also related to the Irish Republican army suck. Irish gangs were born out of Irish resistance to very oppressive British rule. Now, what were they fleeing? What did they face over in the UK versus over here? Were the Irish really discriminated against as many claim? Well, the short answer to that last one is no, actually. The Irish were, as they still are, probably the whiniest group of people on earth, and they can't help it, they're not even mad at them.

If there truly are some ethnic groups genetically inferior to others, the Irish do top that list. They are born heavily predisposed to be drunk, illiterate, violent liars, with pasty skin and way too many freckles. Even their fucking melanin is lazy. It refuses to work hard enough to cover all of their creepy skin. This is not going to be a fun episode for me to do because I fucking hate Irish people. I hate their favorite foods, lucky charms and pork chops. I hate their favorite foods, lucky charms, and pork chops. I hate their favorite desserts, double mint chocolate chip ice cream Sundays, and gummy worms. And I hate their most famous celebrities,

Liam Neeson, and Arsenio Hall. I hate their favorite bands and musicians, you two, and the Wu-Tang clan. Sorry, that was neither a short answer nor a correct one. I think it's okay for me to say whatever I want about Irish people since 23 and me says I'm 52.5% Irish-Predition Scottish. And it doesn't say how much of each. So for this me says I'm 52.5% Irish British and Scottish and it doesn't say how much of each. So for this episode, I'm going to be 52% Irish and

0.5% British and Scottish. I may swap that for a British or Scottish episode down the road. Another short answer to the question of were the Irish really discriminated against as many claimants? Yes. And that along with crushing poverty is part of the reason that the Irish mob sprung up in the first place to take care of people when the government did not give a shit. The Irish gangs were born when many prominent American people actually thought the Irish were an invasive species threatening the white Anglo-Saxon Protestant way of life. So let us begin. So let us begin. In the beginning of Martin Scorsese, good fellows, arguably up there with the Godfather, trilogy of films, one of the best and most famous American gangster films of all time,

as protagonist Henry Hill talks about how he always wanted to be a gangster, Tony Bennett's rags to riches place. Right? I know I'd go from rags to riches. If you would only say you care, and though my pocket may be empty, I'd be a millionaire. And later he sings, must I forever be a beggar whose golden dreams will not come true or will I go from rags to riches? My fate is up to you. While the song is a love song, in the context of this film, the you could arguably be the mafia

that Henry Hill so adored. To gain the trust, the inclusion of the organized crime syndicate was to not only achieve emotional validation and the form of becoming an accepted and important member of the community, a real family of sorts, but to also often become wealthy beyond one's wildest dreams.

One of the reasons we're so obsessed with organized crime, and it's many, you know, permutations, excuse me, is that it offers, in general, an amazing realization of the American dream, a story of building a vast fortune, even when you come from nothing. In this case, a story of an underdog, circumventing unjust obstacles, unjust laws, that sought to keep them at the bottom, and still managed to rise to the top. And though goodfellas dealt with Italian Americans, the same rags to riches narrative also applies to the subject of our episode today, the Irish mob. Though many believe that the American mob began as an Italian institution transplanted directly from Sicily, that is not true. Criminal traditions in Sicily, known variously as Vendetta societies, or Koso-Nostra, or

simply Lamafia, were transported to the US with the beginnings of Italian immigration in the late 1880s and 1890s. The Irish had been in the US for over 40 years by then, and in the American underworld, which was based at that time on the criminal infiltration of the political system for social advancement and economic game, games, excuse me, was already firmly entrenched. By the time the Italian mob made it onto the scene, the Irish were a couple generations deep and to move in along their own rags to riches journeys. And they really did begin with rags. And oftentimes literally, in the early 19th century, Ireland was a very dreary place,

made up mainly of thousands and thousands of small farms being worked by seriously impoverished farmers. Most of the lands were rented out to the Irish tenets by wealthy landlords, mainly English landlords, who often didn't live anywhere near them, most Irish families barely scraped together living as poorly paid, easily replaceable laborers working their own ancestral lands. Property laws passed by British rulers based largely far away in London made it nearly impossible for tenant farmers to achieve even a little bit of upward social mobility. They could be evicted at any time for any reason basically.

And the English did not stop at just financially exploiting the Irish. The names of all the streets and towns were changed from their original gala into the King's English, and not only that, the native Irish language was banned by British law. Long before Americans were trying to erase African and American Indian culture in North America, the British were doing the same shit to the Irish across the Atlantic. This oppressive colonial system was enforced by a brutal justice system. Under various Irish penal laws passed in the 17th century, for example, Catholics, and at that time, essentially, every Irish fan was Catholics or really Irish people, could not hold commission in the army, enter almost any profession, or even own

a fucking horse worth more than five pounds, like sub-sert. Of course, you can own a horse, don't be crazy. Just not a good one. You can have as many shitty horses as you want. A Catholic cannot possess weaponry, not any form of arms. They cannot study law, cannot study medicine, they cannot speak or read galaic, they could not even play traditional Irish music. Catholic clergy were expelled from the country

were liable to instant execution when found. For a brief time, Irish were not even allowed to live inside fucking towns, like just towns in general. Like they're a wild animals, just vermin. Just go on, get out of here, the Irish dogs. Back to you, back to the farms. Go pick your dirty taters, your lowly ginger fucks. Export trade was forbidden as Irish commerce

and industry were deliberately destroyed. After a series of rebellions, these laws were specifically passed not to be fair in any way, shape or form. They were passed to break the backs of the Irish. The penal laws were intended to degrade the Irish so severely they would never again be in a position to seriously threaten Protestant rule. In 1600, Protestants read British, owned just 10% of Ireland's land, and then through all these laws, while this discrimination, the English got what they wanted.

By 1778 Protestants, again, read British own 95% of the land, 10% and 95%. It was resistance to this severe unfair oppression that would give rise to the organizational structure that would later come to define the Irish mob in America. So pretty interesting, right? I think so easy for us to sometimes just assume that people join gangs or so-called organized crime because they're terrible people. Just violent bullies, too lazy and arrogant

to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and rise up, you know, the quote, right way. Selfish motherfuckers with shitty moral compasses who are willing to do whatever to whomever to make sure that they get theirs. And you know that description fits for some, but for many, there are people given almost zero honest opportunities for advancement who rather than just quietly take their lumps and accept a life of unjust squalor thought.

You know what? Fuck that. And fuck anyone who gets in my way when I do everything I can to climb as far as I can. Gonna tip all the rules in your favor? that and fuck anyone who gets in my way when I do everything I can to climb as far as I can. Gonna tip all the rules in your favor? Well then fuck your rules, fuck you, watch me, put my own people in power to change those rules and oppress you. By the early 19th century, what remained of an anti-colonial movement in Ireland became

a group of largely secret resistance societies, aka loosely structured organizations, they use a strategy of sabotage and violence to disrupt the colonial government, especially in rural areas of the country. The IRA was not the only resistance movement in town. Gains like the white boys, the ribbon men, the Mollie McGuire's, they were comprised of members of the community who circulated openly, but whose membership in the underground resistance movement was a well-guarded secret. These gangs presented themselves as community activists. However, before thinking they were nothing short of noble, in times of trouble, they were just as likely to victimize their own as the other side. I guess when you've already crossed a lot of legal moral lines and the name of fighting oppressors, maybe

gotten a little taste of making good money doing so, and then you come across an opportunity to make more of that money by, you know, taking from your own, maybe not so difficult to rationalize your actions, especially when not doing so leaves you and maybe your family hungry, desperate times and all that. The entirety of human existence has always been in some way a battle for limited resources. And the more bad the times, the worse the fighting for those resources and worse times for the Irish were coming. In 1845, the rural resistance societies and most all other forms of social interaction, underground or otherwise were largely brought to a halt

by a tiny agricultural virus known as Barweth, Barweth me here, Phytothera, infestants, Phytothera, infestants. There had been blights before in the country's potato crop, but not like this, right? This just destroyed everything. And the potato was both a product for export and a food source to sustain the nation. Normally, the potato was a hardy tuber that always bounced back from a tough crop cycle.

This time, however, the virus struck at the root and spread like wildfire, wiping out entire crops in 1845, 1846, 1847, and so on. And how could this happen? How could an entire population be so foolish to allow themselves to be dependent on one crop? Were they just poor planners? A bunch of drunk savages not smart enough to do anything but plant and dig up taters? No, not at all. Once again, it goes back to the British. For nearly a century, leading up to the disaster, the economy of Ireland had been artificially engineered via more bullshit-appressive laws to produce one product and one product only. Regressive corn laws were passed and made it economically impossible for Irish farmers

to make a profit off the export of literally anything other than the fucking potato. The Irish had basically been turned into slaves only allowed to do the very limited amount of things. The British allowed them to do. Slaves given just barely enough freedom to maybe keep from revolting. When the crop was wiped out, the result was nearly complete and total devastation of Irish culture. Family starved to death in their fucking cottages or begged in the streets and were reduced to subhuman levels of substance. An archdeacon who toured the village of Kenmer wrote, on one road the deaths are three each day. The people are buried without coffins.

I daily witness the most terrible spectacles. Women, children and old men crawling out of their homes on all fours, perhaps from beside a corpse to crave a morsel of any kind. Holy shit, just envision that, literally crawling around, begging for food like dogs. And this the direct result of centuries of British oppression. Another witness wrote, the cries of starving hundreds that besiege me from morning until night actually ringing my ears. I attended myself a poor woman whose infant dead two days lay at the foot of the bed, and four others nearly dead in the same bed. A famished cat got up on the corpse of the poor infant and was about to not, but for my interference. I could tell you such tales of woe without end.

Four starving family members lain together half dead in the same bed while the emaciated family cat tries to eat their fucking dead sibling. For those that didn't succumb to literal starvation fatal diseases caused by malnutrition were just around the corner with their bodies two week to fight the illnesses thousands died and the bodies were often ceremoniously piled along the side of the road to be taken to mass graves and dumps. So I guess rather unceremoniously. Like their bodies were nothing more than sacs and garbage, just being hauled off to the local land film. And one of these illnesses called sore mouth was a result of eating such non-nutricious food that the people who acquired it eventually were not able to digest actually actual food anymore. They had damaged their stomach linings and bowels too extensively to be able to eat normal

food again. People literally boiling eating boots and other shit you're never going to find in the food pyramid. As you can imagine, the British were not going to save the day. The British responds to reports of mass starvation in their Irish colony just a few miles across the English channel has been most charitably characterized as a kind of criminal negligence best personified in the public comments of Sir Charles Trevalon secretary of the treasury in London during the famine and the man who single handily controlled Irish

relief programs. Ireland's great evil he stated was not famine but the selfish perverse and turbulent character of the people. He, he just went full send on, uh, they did that shit to themselves. Right? Much easier place to go mentally than, oh, fuck, what have we done? What have we done to these poor people? Anyway, thanks to strong Irish sentiment or anti-Irish sentiment, there was no stemming the tide of disease, death and exile during the great famine.

All told, the great famine lasted a decade, 1845 to 1855, and in the country of approximately 8 million people, around a million died, and around another million and a half got to fuck out, forced into exile if they wanted to live, hoping to find refuge, in places like Australia, Canada, and especially the United States. Still today, Ireland's highest recorded population was recorded back before the famine in 1841, 8.18 million. 40 years later, the population was 5.18 million and by 1931, it was 4.21 million, roughly a 50% fucking drop in less than a century. That is crazy. Imagine half the people in your nation just leaving. I remember driving through Flint, Michigan around 2010 and seeing the most boarded up homes, you know, like per capita I had ever seen in my life. Decades of declining economic opportunities,

residents fleeing to find jobs, left the city a shell of its former self. Right, the city was once around 200,000 people, only around 100,000 people were there at that time. Most of them living in extreme poverty. That was Ireland as a whole nation. And then the initial Irish who left for the US had no idea of knowing the prejudice that they would face there or the trade state acquires result of famine and mass starvation, how they would be mocked in the media is typically Irish, right? Oh, great. Another boat of broke-ass skinny gingers coming over and driving down the factory wage Because those dumb motherfuckers will take any menial labor job. They can't get for half the wages of an American

Yeah, of course they will the fucking starving literally They weren't allowed to learn almost any trade The famine and the hard years leading up to it had taught many of these Irish immigrants how to rely on social Connections to survive how to step outside the law to survive and make sure your family and loved ones got what they needed at any cost. All right, how to be ruthless when you didn't know what your next meal was coming from or how rent was going to get paid.

But I have joined a gang under these circumstances or form one, yeah. You know, but I've always had a cost risk analysis approach to the law. How much will I benefit from breaking the law compared to the likelihood I will get caught and get in trouble. How much trouble will I get? Well, I get it if caught. I respect the need for laws so we can have civilization, but I always am aware that laws are passed by fallible men and women and that many laws passed throughout history and still today are

completely immoral and or fucking ignorant. I'm guessing a lot of the Irish immigrants coming to America felt the same and we're definitely a lot harder than my soft 21st century ass. This combination of a lack of respect for the law, hard as a character, it would serve Irish mobsters very, very well. The Irish would wind up in every major American city, but especially settled in the cities that arrived in first, crossed New Atlantic from Ireland, the cities closest to Ireland, like New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and so it will be the gangs that operated in these cities

we will focus on today. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I hope unsurprisingly, by the time the Irish arrived in the US, many of these cities had their own corrupt power, political power structures. Like New York City's Tammany Hall, also known as the Society of St. Tammany, the sons of St. Tammany and, uh, or the Colombian Order. Tammany, the sons of St. Tammany, or the Colombian Order. Tammany Hall was a New York City political organization that endured for nearly two centuries. Formed in 1789 in opposition to the Federalist Party, its leadership often mirrored that of the local democratic party's executive committee. Although its popularity stemmed from a willingness to help the cities pour in immigrant populations. Tamini Hall also became known for charges of corruption, levied against leaders such as William M. Boss Tweed.

In the late 19th century, when Irish immigrants were pouring into New York City by the hundreds of thousands, more Irish lived in New York than in Dublin by 1860, making it the largest Irish population in the world. By 1860, New York was home to 200,000 Irish, making up almost 25% of the city's total population. And at this time, Boss Tweed ran Tamini Hall and was on his way to becoming the third largest land owner in New York City. A director of the Eerie Railroad, a director of the 10th National Bank, a director of the New York printing company, the proprietor of the Metropolitan Hotel, a significant stockholder on Iron Mines and gas companies, a board member of the Harlem Gas Light Company, a board member of the Third Avenue Railway Company,

board member of the Brooklyn Bridge Company, and president of the Guardian Savings Bank. And he was also corrupt as fuck. Tweed was convicted for stealing an amount estimated by an Olderman's Committee in 1877 at somewhere between 25 and 45 million dollars from Newark City from the taxpayers. Later estimates will range as high as 200 million. He was a gangster more than he was a politician. And in many ways he ran New York when the Irish started showing up during the famine. Tamini's decentralized organization enabled ward leaders to act as advocates for individuals when they had difficulties with the law. A criminal judge, for example, appointed or kept an office by Tamini Hall would have to listen carefully to a local ward leader asking for a suspended sentence in a particular case. What's more, Tamini Hall went straight to the top. Frequently its leadership was identical to the executive committee of the local Democratic Party. And it was a major or controlling faction in the party from 1821 to 1872. And after a dip again from 1905 to 1932, and there was corruption, yes.

But it was also very helpful to many, right? And those Irish who had literally been starving, they didn't give a shit about corruption. Some early Irish immigrants gained admittance to Tamini Hall in 1817. And the Irish thereafter never lost their ties with it. Irish members became precinct captains, war bosses, alderman, injecting energy and imagination into a labr- into-in, a labr- war system that dispensed favors and provided an edge in exchange for a vote. Tammy Hall was a lot like them up. Tammy put forth candidates, mostly Democrats, under their banner, and the entire machine

was well represented by the organization's official symbol of ferocious bangle tiger. And this would extend all over the country for a little while. In cities large and small, political machines dominated by first and second generation Irish Americans became a common mode of localized government. And these Irish Americans wouldn't have been able to do it without the support by many of the nation's other immigrant populations. Germans, Swedes, Poles, Jews, Italians, supported even promoted Irish political leaders for a variety of reasons. In the Irish, many recognized the taste for politics that came from a culture based on social

gatherings, at the local saloon or the parish, or both. The Irish culturally understood very well the craft of giving and receiving favors as the basis of a political system. Also they did not shy away from and even seem to relish the art of confrontation which made them both good political leaders and good gangsters. And thus the Irish mob was born. Whereas the mafia, the Italian mafia was a private club, the Irish mob was more of a shared social contract characterized by a loosely connected sphere of influence that started with the lawmen at the top and ended with various street gangs at the bottom. These gangs were the muscle that lurked behind the symbol of the tamini

tiger, their unique skills most notably required on election day when all political parties, democratic, wig, Republican, other smaller groups, unleashed their so-called bully boys to police the polling sites. From gangs to high political office, men and women maneuvered for power, trying to gain a foothold in society and advance themselves by engaging in whatever was required. Legal gambling, prostitution, extortion, and so many other forms of corruption. This remained the model for organized crime in the US until the years of prohibition, which changed everything. Prohibition provided something the underworld never had before, a single dominating racket

that was so insanely profitable it tipped the balance of power. With the establishment of illegal booze as an unprecedented source of profit and influence, the gangsters were now calling the shots not the politicians. This represented the Irish mob's glory years. Gangs were making money from the sales of illegal alcohol and killing people to keep making that money kind of exactly like Latin cartels do right now with cocaine. But don't legalize it. Don't get rid of 90% of that fucking violence.

Not an ass crazy talk. Drugs are bad. Nancy Reagan said so. And she was the smartest person America's ever produced. Anyway, many individual gangsters during prohibition, Irish and otherwise, found themselves flush with influence and cash like they'd never seen before. Gangtimes became closer and more organized and the gangs themselves more profitable, and the racket extended far beyond the criminals. Across the country, an interconnected world, underworld, evolved to include not only

mobsters and bootlegers, but also more politicians than ever before, and judges, lawyers, war bosses, speak easy operators, financiers, corporate overseers, police precinct captains, cops on the beat, corrupt federal agents, probably the father of a future president, et cetera, et cetera. Things began to change with the end of prohibition in 1933, loss of the massive alcohol revenue stream led to gang banging, not making as much financial sense.

And the Irish mob took an even greater hit during the years of FDR's new deal. A number of prominent practitioners of machine politics were prosecuted or forced from office via corruption scandals. Political reforms were enacted that brought about an end to the long era of big corrupt political machines. And then in the years following the World War II, the Irish American gangster was scattered far and wide. Many were absorbed into the labor movement, either as strike breakers hired by corporations or as tough guys and facilitators connected with trade unions, most notably the international longshoreman's association

and the international brotherhood of teamsters. Some Irish American gangsters became notorious hitmen for hire who carried out murder contracts, either for forces in the labor movement or for the Italian mafia or both whoever paid. The Italian mafia frequently employed Irish gunmen, particularly if the intended target of the hit was an Irishman. In fact, throughout the 50s, 60s and 70s,

lone Irish criminals for hire became pretty common. Thinkscore says he's filmed the Irishman. Based on real life Irish American teamsters official and suspected hitman Frank Sheeran, a guy who may have killed Jimmy Hoffa. Many working class Irish who specialized in a specific brand of criminal activity, whether it was B&E's, breaking an entry, safe cracking, the snatch racket, aka kidnapping, murder for hire or body disposal, saw themselves as underworld tradesmen.

Off of these were men who wound up on the losing end of a long ongoing rivalry between Irish and Italian mobsters. With a far larger and more organized structure, Italian organized crime groups inevitably dominated most of the confrontations from the prohibition days onward, ditching and sometimes killing their Irish employees when they no longer serve to purpose. Far more successful for the Irish were the neighborhood-based gangs that came to represent the last remnants of the Irish mob.

These gangs will fly much more under the radar inherited criminal records from their Irish forefathers. And of course, with all of this, I'm making a fair amount of generalizations. While we look at the long history of the Irish mob in America, important to remember, you can't characterize everyone who operated within it in the same way. At the street level, there would be numerous figures who would come to represent the archetypal Irish gangster, desperate, doomed, untamed, shooting from the hip without much common sense to back up their violent actions. But plenty of other figures were community activists, organizers, people who above all were looking out for their fellow countrymen.

Some of them were visionaries, men and women who may have become legendary venture capitalists if they hadn't ended up in the criminal underworld. And also some have been truly despicable people, sociopaths and sadists who embraced violence not as a means to security, but as an end in itself. Now let's meet all kinds of interesting characters in today's time-subtimely, as I suck as much Irish mob history as one can in a few hours' time. Right after today's mid-show, sponsor break. Thanks for sticking around, now we'd been raised after the war. Or because this would be the year that 17 or 18 year old future fucking legend, John Morrissey

would arrive in New York City from the upstate New York town of Troy, where he'd been raised after moving from Ireland there with his parents at the age of three. And Troy Morrissey developed a reputation as one hell of a brawler and a troublemaker. He'd been indicted for burglary, assault, assault with intent to kill, served a 60 day stint in the county jail, and was under constant harassment from local authorities. As a teen, he became the leader of one of the city's downtown gangs, who fought the uptown gangs, gained a reputation as a boxer, able to lay a beat down on just about anybody. His fighting skills would serve him quite well later on in life. Feeling he was meant for

greater things and a rivalry with local law enforcement in a smaller town, John left for the big city, 160 miles to the south. More scene knew exactly where he needed to go, the Empire Club, a gambling parlor and political clubhouse that was famous throughout the state. Located on Park Row in Lower Manhattan, the club was the home base of Captain Isaiah Rinders, legendary sporting man, gambling and persario, political fixer for the Democratic Party. Rinders was the employer of hundreds of political operatives, gambling and prosario, political fixer for the Democratic party. Renders was the employer of hundreds of political operatives, gambling club workers, saloon keepers and gangsters.

His organization had been at the heart of New York political machinery since the early 1840s. In 1844, Renders achieved national fame for himself when he virtually delivered the presidency to James K. Pope, the Democratic candidate is to buy himself. John knew that's where he would have to go to climb the ranks. He ride at the Empire Club on one June afternoon stood overlooking the gaming tables and just simply declared, I'm here to say I can lick any man in this place. Render himself was presiding at the gaming table that day and he called on a few of his

men, violent gangsters who proceeded to attack John and young John fought several of them off with his fists until a man named big Tom Burns smacked him with a spatoon knocking John the fuck out with a hard shot to the head when he woke up, renders offered him a job, working the docs and John took it, the beating was worth it. Morris Z was put to work as an immigrant runner, one of hundreds who worked Castle Garden Wharf in Lower Manhattan, where the immigrant ships let out. Each day, he would watch the arrival of his countrymen and his heart would ache at what he saw.

Having been born in Templemore County, Tipperary in 1831 and then raids in an Irish slum in America, he thought he knew poverty. In Troy, whenever his dad was able to find work, it had been a local wallpaper factory, maybe the docks alongside other Irish laborers, and he struggled to provide for John as well as his seven sisters. But with John saw at Castle Garden, made him reassess his thoughts on poverty. He realized things he'd get a whole lot worse. Gaunt, Haunted, Starving, Irish peasants arrived by the boatload,

weak from dropsy and gout and scurvy and more, clinging with emaciated arms to satchels that contained everything they owned. They told shocking tales of the great famine that ravaged the old country over the last few years and of the horrific disease-ridden journey across the ocean in hopes of a better future. Morse's job was to greet the new arrivals, send them to some soup kitchens and boarding houses owned and controlled by renders. they'd be given a much needed helping hand, and then later when it came time to vote, they would be expected to vote exactly as they were instructed.

It was very much, I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine deal. This position, of course, towed the line between charity and exploitation. On election day, it was Morse's job also to see to it that these immigrants voted the way he told them to and threatened or carry out violence if necessary when they didn't. While he worked as a runner, Morse found lodging in five points. Man, this place. An infamous slum neighborhood, the dominated the six war to the lower tip of Manhattan. Five points was a lively area, though the physical conditions of the district were fucking awful.

Layed out on top of what had once been a sewage pond known as the collect five points had evolved from being mostly an industrial district of Tannere's glue factories, turpentine distilleries to a residential haven for the cities growing and often fucking rowdy new immigrant class. They got his name from the layout of the streets. Five points was where Canal Street, the Bowery, Chatham, Pearl and center streets converge to form a truncated triangle. In the middle of the triangle was Paradise Square, which was claimed by the earliest

of the area's street gangs, mostly Irish, including the 40 thieves, carry onions, shirt tails, chai chesters, patsy connois, plug uglies, roach guard, and dead rabbits. And all that sounds like a good lineup. Some Friday night for some punk rock show and some dirty, porty-lit bar selling mostly cans at Cheap Pilsner. There actually is a post hardcore metal band called Dead Rabbits. Surprisingly, it doesn't seem to be a band named Roach Guard or Carrie Unions, Patsy Con Royce or Chai Chesters.

But there wasn't 80s punk band called plug uglies and there was a new metal band called the 40 thieves and finally there's even a little garage band out of the UK that may or may not still be around called the shirt tails. The other early stage in area outside of paradise square for these first Irish gangs was the bowery which extended north of five points also north of five points were the social clubs and headquarters of the native born American gangs, most notably the Bowery boys, the True Blue Americans and the American Guard. The most infamous building in five points was the Old Brewery. The Old Brewery was a former beer factory that had been converted

into living quarters, a five-story monstrosity. The building mostly housed an impoverished collection of newly arrived immigrants and freed African Americans. And for less than two bucks a month, an impoverished collection of newly arrived immigrants and freed African Americans. And for less than two bucks a month, lodgers would reside in conditions that were stifling, overcrowded, and with a sanitation system so haphazard that the building and surrounding area were sometimes subject to waves of cholera. It was a literal shit show. Sorry, I guess this week's suck does feature some poop in it, but no one was eating the poop in five points I'm aware of.

And the old brewery sprawling basement known locally as the Denitheaves, also the name of the former rock band for the 90s, gambling organized dog fights, prostitution, all manory, all manner of robbery. There we go, in assault, we're not uncommon. For local authorities, be they police or officials of the association for improving the conditions of the poor. The old brewery was a virtual no-go zone. The belief was that if you entered uninvited, you were taking a real risk of never entering

anywhere else again ever. Violent crimes like rape and murder were said to be frequent in the building's long and twisted hallways, and that violence bled out onto the surrounding streets, creating a local atmosphere of depravity. There was a saloon or speak easy on nearly every corner. What a fucking place to be a bartender with drunks tumbling out into the streets to be jackrolled by gangs of pre-pubes and hooligans if not confronted by former members of these gangs now part of local big boy gangs.

This whole situation sounds fucking terrible. I feel like, uh, while I want to say if I was there I'd be a part of the brawl, uh, real badass. I'd probably hole up in my apartment trying to say, if I was there, I'd be a part of the brawl, uh, real badass. I'd probably hold up in my apartment, try and find a good reason not to just throw myself off to fucking roof and get it over with. Organized stevery was also, of course, common with a high concentration of pick pockets, sneak thieves, con artists, working with little groups that could be called gangs, even if they didn't have a name.

At night, practically every other tenement was set up as a brothel. The district was so infamous that Charles Dickens visited, very briefly, in the mid-20th century, and wrote the following about it. Let us go again and plunge into five points. Poverty, wretchedness, and vice are rife enough where we are going now. This is the place these narrow ways diverging to the right and left and wreaking everywhere with dirt and filth. The botry has made the very houses prematurely old.

See how the rotten beams are tumbling down and how the patched and broken windows seem to scowl dimly like eyes that have been hurt and drunken phrase. Vapers issue forth that blind and suffocate. From every corner, as you glance about you in these dark streets, some figure crawls half awakened, as if judgment hour were near at hand. Here too our lanes and alleys paid with mud, knee deep, underground chambers where they dance in game, ruined houses open to the street, went through wide gaps in the walls, other ruins loom upon the eye, as though the world of vice and misery had nothing else to show.

Hidious tenements would take their names from robbery and murder. All that is loathsome, drooping, and decayed is here. Sounds again horrific. But, random thought. I meant some really hot sex also went down there. I mean, come on. Hot, drunken sex, where you're young, and the physical prime, the world has gone mad. You don't know how the fuck your future is going to work out.

If it's going to work out on any level, if you're gonna be around in a week, and you fuck like it's your last night on Earth. Hey, how does Athena allow in this divine pleasure, even in the darkest of times? This place will be John Morrissey's new home base, the place where he would begin to thrive. He'd already had experience in Troy,

lead in a little gang, right? The downtowns who battle with the anti-immigrant uptowns on the regular, but his street fighting ways wouldn't be enough here. Well, it is fist alone wouldn't be enough. He got to learn how to use the five points weapons of choice. This is preposterous. Hatchets, right, so axes, knives, spike clubs, right, big fucking wooden clubs, like think of baseball bat with a bunch of heavy nails sticking out of it, brass knuckles, fucking Tomahawks, muskets and more. Shit was vicious. Yet to be a rugged motherfucker to survive these battles, let alone dominate them.

All of these weapons were being wielded by vicious, battle hardened gang members. By 1850, when John Morris began living on Cherry Street, the gangs had begun to claim various streets and territories as their own. Some of the gangs identified themselves with special clothes or colors. The plug uglies wore high top derbies stuffed with padding so they could use their nogins as battering rams. It's fun. The shirt tails wore their shirts untucked.

So, you know, name makes sense. The dead rabbits hung dead rotting rabbits from their necks so they wouldn't be confused than anyone else. No, they sow distinctive red stripes down the outer seam of their pants to distinguish themselves from the roach guard who would wear blue stripes. For many of the newly arrived Irish who have been oppressed by the British for centuries belonging to these gangs was like belonging to a noble house. Everyone knew who you were from the colors you wore, some real game of throne shit.

One of these gangs could have anywhere between less than 10 or 100 or more members. The largest of the gangs during John's early New York days was the dead rabbits, a conglomeration of numerous former paradise square gangs who'd come together to fight under one banner. Some say that the gang's name derived from the fact that they once actually did carry a dead rabbit and pailed on a stick as a calling card. Maybe more likely the gang's name came from the gaelic and I'm going to pronounce this wrong. I'm sure a dead rabid at the vernacular of the times dead was an intensifier that meant

very and a rabid in gaelic and again, I'm sure I'm pronouncing correctly was a glute or big lug aka a clumsy or opish person. Thus a dead rabbit was a very big glute. The dead rabbits had no real leader. I think the bloods and crypts, not long after they first formed, as opposed to the highly organized Italian mafia family. They were broken down into subdivisions and spread throughout the five points district.

By far the most famous gang battles were those fought between the dead rabbits and the Bowery boys. There were also smaller fights between factions of the 40 thieves, plug uglies, true blue Americans, and more. Some of these riots were territorial in nature. Many were also racially charged, and they were fucking massive, a big old anti-Irish gang fighting a big Irish gang. So many very big glutes duking it out. Sometimes gang riots rage sporadically for two to three days at a time with the streets barricaded by barrels and carts while gangsters blazed away with muskets and pistols or often tussled up close with brick bats, bludgeon's fist feet or their teeth.

Brick bats, a moment on brick bats. That is, they're terrifying. It's a very simple horrifying weapon. You just take a big piece of a brick, right? Just think a big little rock and you put it in a sock or some other piece of cloth or whatnot and swing it around so you can bash someone's fucking face it. Maybe not more terrifying than being hit with a hatchet or a spiked club, but still very terrifying. All this back in the days before antibiotics, modern pain killers, urgent care, cosmetic surgery, so much fun. Most of the combatants were men, but women also played a role, either as lookouts or as resuppliers of ammunition in these battles.

A few women also achieved renown as fierce battles themselves. None more so than Hellcat Maggie, who allegedly fought alongside the dead rabbits and many of their biggest battles with the Bowery boys and other nativeist gangs. Young woman, no more than 20 years old, Helkehead, Maggie, is reported to have literally filed her teeth sharp as mini daggers and wore on her fingers long artificial nails made out of metal. She would descend on a rival gang member like a screaming banshee biting clawing till her fingers were dripping with the blood of her enemy. Real name, not known. She was thought to have suffered a violent death at the age of 25 and she scares shit out of me

She shows up in Martin Scorsese 2002 movie about this place in time gangs in New York You can now actually buy an Irish whiskey called hellcat Maggie Great name. She may be nothing more than a myth or an amalgamation of several real historical figures But myth or not there were a few women fighting their asses off in these brutal gangs casualties from these gang battles could number in the hundreds, frequently the destruction and carnage required calling in the national guard to restore order. When gang numbers died, they were quickly replenished with new immigrants who had just arrived and were seeking protection. Now let's reconnect with street fight and john. By mid 1851, john Morris, he establish himself as a young man on the move through his activities as an immigrant runner and as a political organizer for Captain Isaiah

Render's Empire Club. He had cobbled together a small financial nest egg. They made it possible for him to buy in as a part owner of the Jim Saloon. It was here he would begin to pursue his own political ambitions and not knowing how to read or write. This is where he learned both in the saloon's back room. He also began a professional boxing career traveling as far as California at one point clear across the country for bear knuckle prize fights. And he was an avid gambler. After winning a fight at Boston corners and being declared the new champion of America in

1853 as a heavyweight bear knuckle boxer, more see return to five points as the people's champion and married Sarah, Sarah Smith. He invested his boxing proceeds in a number of gambling establishments, one of which a Pharaoh and Roulette parlor located at number eight Barclay Street became especially popular amongst politicians and sporting men as they were called gamblers. More downscale gambling den owned by Morsey was located near Paradise Square. That was frequented by members of the dead rabbits Increasingly Morrissey's circle of friends spanned two worlds rich and poor street hoodlums and connected politicians And then one and then on the night of July 26 1854

Morrissey came face-to-face with another very scary motherfucker William Poole An notorious former bowry boy who now presided over his own gang, the Poole Association. Poole was a butcher by trade, very skilled with knives. As a member of the anti-Irish Bowry boys, he'd been in a number of gang wars with the dead rabbits in the Roach Guard, and according to rumors, he had sliced more than a couple guys up. He was over six feet tall when that was a lot less common than it is now, strong as a bull,

and he was known as Bill the Butcher. Daniel De Lewis played him in gangs in New York, and that was a lot less common than it is now strong as a bowl and he was known as build a butcher. Daniel Day Lewis played him in gangs in New York and that's a fucking fantastic film if you have not seen it. Daniel Day Lewis plays such a memorable psychopath. I got lost in highlights for a while. One of the greatest villains I've ever seen on the big screen watching clips of his performance still gives me the chills. One of the greatest actors ever.

In recent months, build a butcher, the real one had emerged as a popular representative of the greatest actors ever. In recent months, Bill the Butcher, the real one, had emerged as a popular representative of the No Nothing Party. A political organization that started as a secret anti-immigrant underground network, which burned Catholic churches and assassinated immigrant leaders. In the wake of the Irish potato famine, the No Nothing Movement rode a wave of racist,

slanderous anti-Iris sentiment that had roots earlier in the century. In the US, no Irish need apply was a sentiment expressed by American born employers pretty commonly going back at least until the 1830s, or at least as far as the 1830s. The prejudice was partially religious based with anti-immigrant politicians claiming that Catholics, allegiance would be to the Pope and not to the country, something that would still get leveled at John F. Kennedy over a century later when he ran in the 1960 presidential election, makes me think of more recent Mitt Romney sentiment. Fear he'd be more loyal to the LDS

church than to America. In addition to anti-Catholic sentiment, there were also racial stereotypes at work. The Irish were seen as ignorant, anti-authoritarian, uh, clan-ish, rowdy, and primitive. In newspaper editorial cartoons in Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore, and New York, the Irish were routinely depicted as racial others as inferior. One famous cartoonist, Thomas Nast, even established a thriving mini-career, lampooning patty, whose pug nose, slavently representation was often placed alongside Sambo, the ignorant rural black

caricature. Both Patti and Sambo personified to many the two racial and cultural threats to the Waspie ruling order. By the time Bill the Butcher had begun to distinguish himself as a gangster, the no-nothings were the shock troops of a so-called American purification movement. Among other things, the official no-nothing charter listed their principles as anti-Romanism, anti-Bedonism, anti-Papistalism, anti-Nunnerism, anti-Winking Virginiaism, and anti-Jesuitism. Winking Virginiaism, no fucking clue what that means. A little joke at the time maybe that was lost to history. The butcher was a hero of the anti-immigration movement, and Morrissey was the hero of the other side when they first met.

Those two forces came head to head in the night of July 26, 1854, when Morrissey found the butcher drinking at the bar of the city hotel at Broadway and Howard Street. Morrissey challenged pool to a boxing match. The two men would agree to meet the following morning at the Amos Street dock, now Christopher Street. And as later described in the police gazette, this encounter was fucking legendary. He reads,

The fight began with some light sparring, pool holding himself principally on the defensive as his opponent circled for a chance to close. From about five minutes his child's play of the Giants lasted. Then more as he made a rush, but pool was too quick for him, as old smoke made his lunge build the butcher ducked with remarkable agility and seized him by the ankles. In a flash pool, through his opponent, clean over his head. And as old smoke went sprawling, he only had time to roll over when pool pounced on him like a tiger.

Then followed terrible minutes of fighting. There was a long gash and pools' cheeks where the flesh had been torn by his opponent's teeth. The blood was streaming from both of Morris's eyes. Not a hand was raised to interfere or favor either contestant during the two or three minutes. This struggle lasted and then the fight would end in a draw. Two fucking bears going head to head. It's would have been quite the fight to watch.

It would have been like UFC if the only rule was no weapons. These two tough guys would continue being rivals for just over half a year until the night of February 25th, 1855, when two of Morrissey's henchmen gunned down, build a butcher at Stanwix Hall. The real butcher's death, not quite as dramatic as the Leonardo DiCaprio movie version. Before I continue, a word about old smoke, by the time of this fight, smoke was nicknamed morisie had been known as likely for a few years and how he got this nickname is even fucking crazier than what you just heard a more legendary fight.

During a fight with Thomas McCann another noted rough and tumble fighter morisie was said to have been pinned on his back a top burning calls from a stove that had been overturned during the brawl and then morisie endured the pain of having his fucking flesh burned off his body Only to go full hulk fight off Mechan enough to get back on his feet then beat McCann within an inch of his life as smoke from his burning flesh Literally was rising up from his back This guy was no fucking joke Following the murder of build a butcher John Morrissey alongsey along with Padeen, McLaughlin,

Lou Baker and Jim Turner, a few other minor gangsters they were all put on Trial for his murder. The case resulted in a series of hung juries before charges were dropped all together. Guessing old smokiness buddies might have gotten the jury members, made it very clear to them that a guilty verdict would equal their death. Irish American John old smoke Morrissey was now the most popular and notorious man in all of New York's underworld, but still not the most powerful. Over the next years, he would shore up power and influence, pain, attention, but not acting as the Irish clamored for the leader of the mob to be one of their own.

The current leader was still renders, and he was not Irish. The need for a strong leader was important during these years, the city's gang wars were growing worse and worse due to the fact that New York was patrolled by two competing police forces. To be nissables, who were loyal to the Democratic Party, and more pro-Irish, and the metropolitan stepchild of the Republicans, and more anti-Irish. So weird, that they had these two competing police forces. These forces seemed more interested in fighting each other than actually policing the city.

So, meanwhile, gangs got free license to brawl as much as they want. And then all of this would come to a head, July 4th, 1857, Independence Day. That evening, a large contingent of dead rabbits and roach guards attacked the clubhouse of both the Bowery boys and the Atlantic Guard at 42 Bowery. And all night battle raged, and the police did nothing. The next day, the gang wore continued, with literally hundreds of soldiers on each side. Brick bats, stones and clubs were flying thickly around reported the New York Times.

Fucking brick bats. The times continued, men ran wildly about brandishing firearms, wounded men laying the sidewalk and were trampled upon. Now the rabbits would make a combined rush and force their antagonist up, bared street to the balleray, then the fugitives being reinforced would turn on their pursuers

and compel a retreat. Police finally arrived in the scene using their clubs to force scores of dead rabbits and Bowery boys into tenements. One fleeing gangster was knocked off the roof of the house at Baxter Street. His skull was fractured when he hit the sidewalk and then his gang enemies promptly, if he was even still alive, made sure to stomp him to death. It was mayhem Eventually, please call in Isaiah renders He would arrive on the scene on July 5th, right?

This you know later this day employ the implore the gangs to end the violence and return He would just get a bunch of rocks thrown at him So renders had influence, but he did not control the iris. That was clear now. He was not the mob boss He thought he was within about an hour after he spoke though eight p.m. the right does finally end eight men were known to have been killed during the riots with uh... likely around a hundred injured and now with renders exposed as not having the influence he thought he did the

iris turned to their new leader john old smoke morrisy no that is over you just don't turn it off sorry all that much is mo this game your little ramb flashback from last week. Morrissey's first order of business was to expand his gambling empire in the 19th century, gambling fueled the entire underworld, as well as upper world politicians who relied on

money and muscle provided by gambling operators. Morrissey ran two kinds of establishments, gambling den for the poor, which consists of mostly of card games, crafts, a few other games of the day, and upscale parlors for the poor, which consists mostly of card games, crafts, a few other games of the day, and upscale parlors for the rich, who favored Pharaoh, Begotel, and Relette. Meanwhile the recent riots increased anti-Iris sentiment in the US. Cartoonists now depicted the Irish as grotesque ape-like creatures. Dumb, lawless brutes in the depictions of their dress, public behavior, custom, and physical appearance.

The Irish poor in particular were portrayed as a dangerous race. Elite New Yorker, George Templeton Strong would observe in his famous diary. Our Celtic fellow citizens are almost as remote from us in temperaments and constitution as the Chinese. All right, pretty cringey. Not sure more, see really gave a fuck about dudes like New York Socialite and Rich Kid George Templeton Strong. He was building an empire. The next open to gambling parlor and nearby Saratoga Springs and became a high society figure

himself started dressing the part. You grew a full black beard wore sparkling jewelry, a studded Krobat diamond rings, gold pocket watch, wore striped, high-waisted pants, combined with a swallowtail jacket and a beaver-peld overcoat overcoat. Excuse me, topped off with a mink boulder hat. It's one that you sit with that visual for a second. And imagine a guy dressed like that at some fancy high-end restaurant or opera house or whatnot feeling insulted and then not even bothering to take off his jacket or jewelry and then maybe just brick bat and shit out of you. I pictured him wearing a monocle

and just pounding my face and without breaking a sweat or having the monocle fall out. While Morrissey set the stage for how rags to riches gangsters would appear for the next century roughly, he also rubbed shoulders with the elite. But when Morrissey tired, tried to buy a house in the expensive, aristocratic part of town, a group band together and bought it out from under him

Still didn't want the Irish in town rich or not And those fuckers were lucky to live after that Morecy would not be deterred by the slight in 1868 He used his clout to get himself elected to u.s. Congress Two years later he'd be reelected in an overwhelming majority Meanwhile like we said in the intro Irish mobsters continued to work their way up the ranks of Tamini Hall. And the man who presided over Tamini Hall beginning in 1863 was the notorious boss tweed,

aka William Marci tweed, whom Morrissey endorsed, providing him with the Irish Catholic vote. Tweed was not Irish, but he was a third generation Scottish. Right? And since the Scottish had also been oppressed by the Irish, I guess he was considered close enough until 1871, the boss and the ring of gangsters who supported him controlling the levers of power by determining who would and who would not be elected office. They did so largely through a use of thuggery and terror on election day. Once an office, tweeds ring got rich through control of the municipal government, the county government, the judicial system, the governorship, the all important board of audit, which supervised

city and county expenditures. Under tweed, the Irish benefited greatly, holding down key positions as ward commitment, ward bosses and precinct captains. But you know, then as I mentioned earlier, it all come crumbling down. A series of damning articles in the New York Times brought on by Tweed building his own massive Victorian-style courthouse finally turned the tide of public opinion against him. Back-to-back indictments showed the Tweed is stolen $6 million in funds. It was alleged that the boss and his ring together had defrauded the municipal government

out of $45, maybe even $50 million. Estimated later as I mentioned, it up to $200 million. Facing major prison time, Tweed went on the land, eventually made it to Spain, where he was caught, and then extradited to the US, where he would languish behind bars. Then as part of a plea arrangement, Tweed eventually came clean, and in 1877,

during an investigation of the Tweed ring by the board of alderman, this boss turned on John Oldsmoke Morrissey. In a long written statement, the disgraced Tamini boss identified Morrissey as a skillful practitioner of mass voter fraud and a bagman for the ring. Furthermore declared Tweed Morse was a proprietor and owner of the worst places in the city of New York, the resort of thieves and persons of the lowest character. Perhaps one of the worst faults that can be attributed to me

is having been the means of keeping his gambling houses protected from the police. Morecly leadership position amongst the city's Irish movers and shakers was now quickly taken over by a rival. Honest John Kelly, another Irishman. Old smoke then broke from Germany and tried to create his own organization called Young Democracy, even though he was elected to the state Senate in 1875 and reelected two years later, his health deteriorated

due to alcoholism and dementia, and he was never able to reclaim his previous position of power. On May 1st, 1877, after being bedridden for weeks, John Morris, he died of pneumonia. He was only 47. The man who had helped to create the criminal framework for the Irish and America was gone, but he had showed future generations that by combining criminal know-how with political influence, a man could take on the world even if he was born with nothing. By the 1880s, now, the squalid slum conditions that had given rise to an earlier generation of dead rabbits and

plug uglies had not changed much. In five points, the old brewery had been torn down with all traces of its sorted past eradicated, but tenement life had become even more stifled, and it spread well beyond the bounds of the Six War. With nearly 33,000 densely crowded tenement houses on the Lower East Side, that's insane. Children had little choice but to lead their lives mostly in the street, a pack mentality ruled. Famed photojournalist Jacob A. Reese, with right of what he witnessed. Every corner has its gang, not always on the best of terms with the rivals on the next block, but all with the common program, defines a blonde order, and with a common ambition,

to get pinched, i.e. arrested, so as to pose his heroes before their fellows. A successful raid on a Grocers' till is a good mark, doing up a policeman is cause for promotion. The gang is an institution in New York. Reese would argue the gang life was simply a condition of living in such squalid housing, writing, The gang is the ripe fruit of tenement house growth. It was born there and downed with a heritage of instinctive hostility to restraint by a

generation that sacrificed home to freedom, or left his country for country's good, for its country's good. The Tenement received and nursed the seed, New York's tough represents the essence of reaction against the old and the new oppression. Nursed in the rank, soil of the slums, its gangs are made of the American-born sons of English, Irish and German parents. They reflect exactly the conditions of the Tenement from which they sprang. Man, environment!

Such a powerful influencer of character. Right? How can it not be? How much easier is it to live a so-called good and successful life if you're born in a nice affluent home in some safe suburb to two loving and stable parents? Then it is to build that same life when you're raised in the tenements or the ghetto. No real difference, right? Growing up in a broken home or at least an extremely impoverished one around human wolves and cheap and frequent death.

In the years following John Morris' death in 1878, to the end of the century, the YOs, were now by far the most notorious gang in New York. YOs also the name of a band, Rocking Billy Band from the 80s. Like the dead rabbits before them, the Irish YOs were a conglomeration of numerous, smaller street corner crews, who, according to Reese, met in club rooms, generally a tenement, sometimes under a pier or dump, to corrals, play cards, and plan the rates, their fences, who dispose of the stolen property. Since the city was now a fully-accorder Irish, those former anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant

groups had simply been overwhelmed, now known was strong enough to stand up to them. The YOs thus were less of a protection organization and more of a criminal commercial enterprise. They existed for plunder and profit alone. They were led for years by the two dannies, Dany Lions and Dany Driscoll, and they presided over a sprawling domain that seemed to take in most of lower Manhattan. Dany Lions was a pimp who often stro stole the streets of the six ward with his girls. He had an ability to bring girls into the fold that was unprecedented,

which probably said it to get men to join the YOs too. Their membership, almost all of whom had nicknames, a common feature of the gangs in general, included Red Rocks Farrell. Guggy, Corcoran, Guggy, oh Guggy, Bull Hurley, Hagi Walsh, Slops Connolly, Corcoran, Guggy, oh Guggy, bull hurly, hoggy, wallesh, slaps connolly, and Derek Skietz keep moving.

Maybe not Derek, but the rest of those were real nicknames that actually better than Derek Skietz keep, well, I like fucking slaps, hoggy and Guggy. Pike or Ryan, another why-who, who helped make the gang famous, achieved a kind of immortality when he was arrested with a gangster priceless in his pocket that was published in the police Gazette, right? A little newspaper

around the city. This is great. Punching two dollars, both eyes blacked four dollars, nose and jaw broke, ten dollars, jacked out, which is to be knocked out with a blackjack, fifteen dollars. Or if you don't want to like knock somebody out with a blackjack, $15. Or, if you don't want to like knock somebody out with a blackjack, you can pay the same amount to get somebody's ear shot off. A Lager arm broke, $19. Shot in leg, $25. Stab, $25.

Doing the big job, obviously murder, $100 and up. Man, a100 an up. Man, a couple thoughts here. First, how was it cheaper to pay this guy to choose someone's ear off? And then it was to have him break somebody's arm. I mean, I do get that it was harder back then to recover from a broken arm than it is now,

but simple fractures of the arm were actually relatively easy to fix back in the 19th century. Right? Having your ear chewed off, tough to repair that now, impossible back then. You're just down in ear for the rest of your life. Also, why was chewing someone's fucking ear off common back then? I mean, the rest of that shit is fairly typical street fight stuff. You know, knocking somebody out, black in their eyes, breaking their legs, arm, but chewing

an ear off just seems like another level. And finally, why wasn't there an option to black just one eye? Why did you have to pay someone to black and both of someone eyes are none of their eyes? I feel like asking Piker Ryan any of these questions would at least get me punched. If I annoyed him so much he felt like he had to punch me, I wonder if I'd have to pay him two bucks. And I feel like asking him that question would probably get my arm broke or my ear truded off. The wires were now more like we'd now, the wires were more like what we now think of as

the mob, right, than their predecessors. They collected tribute payments from saloon keepers and shop owners in the area in return for protection. You know, that is not getting robbed by competing gangs or being robbed by the wires themselves. A crime known as racketeering. Racketeering takes his name from the word racket, which was a public function like a party or a dance that criminals will hold under the guise of being a fundraiser for a worthy cause.

Raccotering was one example of how the underworld had become much more organized and stratified, thanks to pioneers like John Morrissey. So how was it organized? One way to think of it would be like baseball. The neighborhood street gangs represented the minor leaks. We are an enterprising young hoodlum could establish a reputation, show his stuff, attract the attention of some big league scouts. If a gangster distinguished

himself at the street level, he could advance to the majors, become a mobster, which was a position much more closely connected to the, you know, levers of political and economic power in the city. If the mobster was really good, he could play for Tammany Hall, like the New York Yankees. And within Tammany Hall, he could become an all-star, get filthy rich, even if he were truly gifted, make it to the mobster hall of fame like John Oldsmoke Morrissey. The baseball metaphor extends if you think about the kind of notoriety Irish mobsters got,

sort of its own celebrity status. In fact, by the 1880s, Irish gangs in general had become so notorious, they achieved a kind of mythical status in the press. You could be the Babe Ruth, the Lou Gehrig of the underworld, kind of like Capone, you know, Scarface would be decades later for the Italian mafia. And Manhattan, most of the city's broadsheets had a daily common that covered the criminal courts and another called the police blotter that related rest reports on the previous night's criminal activity. And the columns paid a lot of special attention to the gangs. Another gang was the daybreak boys to join them. You had to kill somebody. There was also the Hudson dusters, the gas house gang,

the parlor mob and the goofers. The goofers born in Hills kitchen, a burgeoning slum on menahattons westside. But above these and other local gangs in the 1880s, the Irish, YOs reign supreme. And let's check back in with their leaders now, the two dannies started with Danny Lions. Like we said, he was a pimp. One day he happened to recruit a girl who left her boyfriend to join his group in Paradise Square.

This boyfriend would declare that Daniel Lions was gonna fucking pay for his deeds. Some accounts say the boyfriend attacked Lions, others say he didn't just, you know, just said like, basically confronted him verbally. What is not disputed is that lines pulled out a revolver proceeded to shoot the boyfriend in the middle of Paradise Square.

Immediately afterwards, he went in the lamp. His brothel operation then struggled without a manager. Two of his prostitutes would end up getting in a scuffle that ended with one of them stabbing the other in the throat with the fucking cheese knife. Shortly thereafter, lines was captured and put on trial. Though all the evidence pointed to the fact that he was defending himself in the shooting as a leader of the Y.O. gang, he didn't have a chance with the jury.

Guess he couldn't get to them the way that old smoke could. He was found guilty murder sentenced to death. Around the same time, Danny Driscoll, the other leader of the Y.O.s, who would also be put on trial for murder when he accidentally shot a young prostitute while trying to kill a rival gang's member was sentenced to death. Neither one of these dudes had quite the clout, or the love of the people is old smoke. At 715 on the morning of January 23rd, 1888, Driscoll was led to the gallows, and his last words were, may God have mercy on my soul.

742 AM, he was executed. 300 pounds of iron jerked him three feet into the air. The rope snapped his neck like a twig. Eight months later, the other Danny was led down the same hallway to the same gallows. Rope was placed around his neck, trapped door, dropped open, lines bucked and kicked for a few seconds and then he was gone. A reporter for the Brooklyn Eagle would observe, so far as a hanging can be good, it was good hanging. All right, now a new leader needed to command the Yos. And that man would be a rising underworld star named Timothy Daniel Sullivan, aka Big Tim.

Sullivan owned a saloon on Christie Street that the now two dead Danis had frequented. He was born in five points July 20th, 1863, putting him in his mid-twenties at the time of his ascent. He'd grown up in a rundown 10-minute apartment with his mom, six siblings, stepped-ed, three borders, all occupying one tiny apartment. Yeah, as a young man, he worked as a newspaper delivery boy, which allowed him to develop a network of contacts. He'd form his first business by giving orphans and runaways their first stack of papers free in exchange for the loyalty and it worked and he began to climb

the business ladder. By the age of 23 as a result of his popularity in the ward, Sullivan was put forth as a candidate for state assembly. Despite his youth and experience, one by landslide. On the night of his victory, a large crowd gathered at his campaign headquarters on the Bowery and chanted loudly, Hurrah for big Tim, hurrah for the big fella. Nobody was better at securing votes than big Tim. What do we do more hurrah now? You don't hear anybody hurrah anymore. You know, you do something nice, hurrah, you know, I should do that, you know, Logan

designed a shirt that I especially, you know, we love, we just like with both hands, hurrah for Logan, hurrah love it! Just a little chance. Tired of us, some great fucking video for social media. Hurrah! I'm tired of that. Not enough for Ross. Nobody was better at securing votes than Big Tim. And his speech delivered on behalf of a recently elected alderman.

He explained his technique of altering a Huttam's appearance so that he could vote multiple times undetected. He said, when they vote with their whiskers on, you take them to a barber, scrape off the chin, French, then you vote them again with the side, lie, lax and a mustache. Then to the barber again, off come the sides. You vote them a third time with just a mustache. If that ain't enough, and the box can stand a few more ballots, clean off the mustache, vote them plain face. That makes every one of them good for four votes. Ah, the good old days of voter fraud. A bit harder to do now, it seems, despite the claims of some.

By the beginning of the 1890s, Big Tim Sullivan had effectively taken the position that John Morrissey had left. The Leavid captain of the Irish mob. But there was a new challenge to the Irish mobs, pre- to the Irish mobs, pre-eminence, more immigrants. Now, instead of the Irish arriving by the boat loads, it was the Italians. Mamamia di Catani, madinera, frere mazerade! Like the Irish before them, these immigrants

came with little more than the clothes on their backs between 1880 and 1924, more than four million Italians immigrated to the US, with the majority fleeing grinding, rural poverty and southern Italy and Sicily. Wars, a massive earthquake, a drought, disease, decimating Italian vineyards, and more all combined to lead to millions of Italians, including hundreds of thousands of Sicilians, facing some of the same hardships the Irish faced.

Unlike the Irish, some of these immigrants brought a criminal tradition of commerce and respect rooted in the villages of Sicily. This was the beginnings of the American Italian mafia. The Sicilian version of America would come to be known as Casa Nostra, our thing, villages of Sicily. This was the beginnings of the American Italian mafia. The Sicilian version in America would come to be known as Casa Nostra, our thing, and it would be comprised of friends who had to be Italian-born and friends of friends, extended business associates who could be non-atallian. The mafia also even had their own version of racketeering, which in Sicilian was called Pizu. To find literally, Pizu meant the beak

of a small bird, such as a canary or a lark. Back in Sicily, called Pizu. To find literally Pizu meant the beak of a small bird, such as a canary or a lark. Back in Sicily, when the Mafia Don referred to a very vagonari appizu, aka Wedding the Beek, he was talking about the same system of tribute that already existed in the Irish mob. In many ways, the power struggle between the Irish and Italian mobs would come to define the criminal underworld for the next century.

Interestingly, the kind of opening shots in this war would take place not in New York City or Chicago, but in New Orleans. I love it. I was working in NOLA. The head of my standup show there when going over the section notes. Later the night of October 15th, 1890 on his way home from work, New Orleans police superintendent David C. Hennessy was killed by a band of unknown assailants. Before that, in his years as a lawman, Hennessey had established a reputation as a fearless crime fighter.

He was especially well-known as the man who had almost single-handedly taken on the Sicilian Mafia. A hail of bullets ripped through him, leaving him dead in the streets as he tried to pursue his attackers. News of the assassination caused ripples all over town. Hennessey was idolized by the city's Irish population. He had been one of their own. Seemed like a straightforward story of a hero being gunned down in his prime by getting a criminals, but it wasn't that simple. He was actually in cahoots with the Provenzano, mob family, and this was not uncommon for

local police. Since at least 1874, when the hated metropolitan police force was ousted during an armed coup and the city run department was instituted in its place, cops in New74 when the hated metropolitan police force was ousted during an armed coup and a city run department was instituted in its place. Cops in New Orleans were the lowest paid of any big city police force in the entire US, which gave them a lot of incentives to take bribes and pick up extra work. They frequently hired themselves out to be security guards, private detectives, or even guns for hire, even to the mafia, and Hennessy allegedly went into business with the Provenzano

brothers and became a part owner of a popular bordello called the Red Lantern Club located near Hennessy's home and a part of the French quarter known as the swamp at that time. But there were those who didn't appreciate this, the rival Italian family in the area, the Matronka mob. On the night he was killed, Hennessy was weak so away from testifying on behalf of the Provenzanos and the upcoming trial. But to the public who didn't know this, Hennessy was an Irish hero gun down by Italian gangsters. Mayor Joseph A. Shakespeare now went a little bit crazy and he ordered the whole sailor rest of any and all Italian males between the age of 12 and 55

within three hours of Hennessy's death in the early morning hours of October 16th, five of the dozens of Italians questioned and arrested were charged with murder. Then outside the police station, an angry mob started to gather. These angry Irish Americans spat and jeered at the Italian wives and mothers who had shown up to get their husbands and sons at a jail. When the five Italians were transported to the prison, the Irish crowd followed chanting in a mocking accent, Who killed the chief? Fucking disgusting.

I have no use for anyone who mocks the Italian language. It's a big unknown. I respect it. I forget it. I don't publish animals. I'm out in Toronto. I'm dead as a link. We ain't a coup.

But I'm a minister to me. I forget about it. About a being a copiece. A child battle. Pat a sage act. Anyway, what followed after this unforgettable act of disrespect? act of disrespect was an attempt by a young Irish journalist to shoot one of the men charged with murder. And he did shoot him in the throat,

but the man eventually recovered. The journalist was then allowed as a heroic Irish Avenger by the community. In the end, 19 men were indicted for planning and carrying out the execution of chief fantasy, all Italian. On February 16th, 1891, nine men went to trial. Despite the public's demand for vengeance,

a jury found all nine defendants not guilty. There wasn't enough evidence. Now when angry crowd, and this is terrifying, an angry crowd of Irish residents, over 20,000 of them gathered in the town square. Together they stormed the parish prison. Armed with guns and clubs and probably some fucking brick bats, they dragged seven Italians in the prison yard, shot them dead execution style.

Two more were found hiding in a doghouse, shot and killed in the spot. Another hanged crudely from a lamp post, one final man who pretended to be dead in the yard for a while found hanged from a tree on Orland Street. I was the largest single mass lynching in American history. And yes, that was 11 people killed while only 9 were tried, all 19 at the time and initially arrested were still being held. 8 managed to hide from the angry mob. The court and district attorney set the survivors free after the lynching, dropped the charges against the men who had not yet been tried. Crazily enough, most media, even government figures considered all

of this justified. Mayor Shakespeare declared, I do consider that the act was, however, deplorable, unneccessary and justifiable. The Italians had taken the law into their own hands, and we had to do the same. Oh, did you? Maybe not the same Italians there. You were killing Shakespeare, kind of an important distinction. While the incident was not connected to the Irish mob activity in the Northeast, to be clear, it nonetheless established some main themes that would surface and coming conflicts

between Irish and Italian underworld figures. Police departments would become considered bastions of the Irish, who ironically worked with Italian gangsters. The figure of the corrupt Irishman, a cop, a gangster or both, would be engraved in the culture of the Irish mob now. Public opinion would be divided between Italian and Irish leanings and racial tensions would explode into violence at the drop of a hat. Now let's move to another city where the Irish would gain a foothold, Chicago actually.

They had a foothold there before the Italians. Most of the early Chicago Irish have touched down in other cities before making their way to a new Midwestern development where opportunity seemed plentiful. The greatest of them all was Michael Cassius McDonald aka King Mike McDonald. We met this Michael McDonald before way back in episode 22 Al Capone's Valentine's Day about that. So I saw his name. So now I just have to forget. I keep forgetting when I didn't love any more. I keep forgetting things will never be the same. Okay. I keep forgetting how you made that so clear. I keep forgetting. Every time you're near, you get a key mic whose dad was from Ireland was a gambling overlord, a political mover and shaker, and basically ran Chicago around the turn of the century.

He would be another father of the Irish mob, just like John Morrissey. Born in Niagara Falls, New York in 1839 as a boy, he apprenticed to be a bootmaker. What confined to the small slum as parents had immigrated to when they left Ireland, Mike yearned for a bigger world. World of opportunities and possibilities,

not confined to a few shitty city blocks. He first visited Chicago in 1855, settled there in the 1860s and started his first business venture, a petition calling on all Irishmen to join in Illinois, Illinois, Irish brigade and fight on behalf of the Union in the Civil War. Not but not really. He had no intention of fighting. This was a scam.

He colluded with army deserters who agreed to turn themselves in, re-enlist and split the commission that Mike received for recruiting them to join. Then in 1867, he opened his first gambling establishment at 89 Dearborn Street, but his main racket would be bailing anyone out of jail who needed it. The bail bondsman business was highly competitive, but McDonald had an upper hand by employing numerous small time lawyers to troll the sheriff's office and the criminal courts. And at Mike's behest, they offered to post bond for those charged with crimes on short notice and easy terms and making all this much, much easier. The judge and the police officers were in Mike's pocket. In the end, everybody got paid.

All right, the cops made money on the side while satisfying the reformers and the press that they were making arrests. The judge got his cut, the criminal got out of jail, bill bondsman like Mike McDonald, put every criminal in town into his debt as he also amassed a small fortune. By the mid 80s or 1880s, Mike McDonald was a millionaire many times over, but the true measure of his power and influence was only partially based on money. He's credited with having handpicked the city's mayor, Carter Harrison, who presided over Chicago in the population soared from 500,000 to over a million.

He was the man behind the man, the criminal behind the corrupt politician, the criminal behind the criminal. King Mike, whether the series of scandals, including the time when his wife shot and killed a police officer, and then when she ran off with a traveling singer, and he had to go to San Francisco to get her back, and then when she ran off with a traveling singer, and he had to go to San Francisco to get her back, and then when she became very devoted to religion, but ended up running off with the priests. Man, Mike, for an underworld king,

seems like he could have gotten yourself a more devoted wife who caused you less problems. Despite his relationship drama, Mike would still become the king of the bootlers. What the fuck is a bootler? It's a great question. At the time of King Mike's reign, bootleens seemed to be the dominant criminal activity

in America, at least according to the newspapers of the day. Bootleens involved fleece-seen municipal governments through judicious bribes, the creation of fraudulent shell companies that were the beneficiaries of fraudulent contracts and the billion of government agencies for services that would never be rendered. You can do this in a number of ways, and Mike did. In 1887, he used its influence to get a renovation contract on the courthouse given to his company. The company insisted on using a special very

expensive paint to the tune of hundreds and hundreds of dollars and the paint was nothing more than cheap chalk and water. Reminds me of some bullshit government contracts in the 80s, when military industrial complex grifters like McDonald Douglas, charge the Navy $2043 apiece for some basic metal nuts. Custom made, yeah, but nothing special. No expensive material, not hard to make. Navy also paid $435 for a hammer that looked like the kind you could buy at a hardware store for 20 bucks, or a basic plastic toilet seat cost almost $700. An aluminum ladder was one sold for $75,000.

An ash tray for $659.00. A fucking ash tray. And shit like that continues to this day, right? Corporations of the gangsters now, bribing corrupt politicians with campaign contributions or six figure appearance fee checks in exchange for politicians giving them heavily inflated contracts. Newspaper unraveled King Mike's paint scam, but Mike was never charged. I said hundreds of hundreds of thousand dollars. Excuse me, not hundreds.

I was sticking in my head. And you got to keep his money. One of the many scams he pulled off before his party came to an end. On the night of October 28th, 1894, Chicago Mayor Carter Harrison, King Mike's man, servant, and his fifth term now, shot three times at close range by a vengeful city official. The criminal underworld had nothing to do with his death, but without his main mouthpiece, King Mike was deposed. Still, various Irish criminal political machines kept running through the end of the 19th century

all over America. And Chicago, New York, Brooklyn, Albany, San Francisco, Kansas City, and especially Boston, where there was a huge Irish population. And where one upstart James Michael Curley, a young ward boss, extorted his followers to vote early and often for Curley. I love, I love just saying vote often, just like blatant in your face voter fraud, vote early and vote many times. Curly's popularity was such that when he was convicted of fraud for taking a civil service

exam on behalf of a constituent, he was reelected by a huge margin from his jail cell. Curly and other politicians were known to take tribute payments from nearly every kind of illegal business venture. And Chicago, the price was 25 bucks a week for massage parlors and uh, uh, uh, asignation houses, aka brothels, 50 to $100 a week for larger brothels, 25 more do of drinks were sold 50 a month for saloons, 15 a month for selling liquor from an apartment, uh, 25 a week for poker and crafts tables. For the last one, poker and crafts tables, different gambling overlords, controlled different saloons and these Zars were constantly encroaching on one another's turf, which would lead to Chicago's gambling wars.

In July of 1907, a bombing war erupted amongst these city's gambling factions. The first to be hit was Blind John Condon, one of local kingpin, big Jim O'Leary's partners, and a link to the Mike McDonald's syndicate of the past. On July 23, Condon was relaxing in the rear of his home at 2623 Michigan Avenue when a bomb was tossed into his front yard. Luckily, the bomb only caused partial damage to the home's facade. Two days later, July 25th, 9 o'clock at night, German gambling boss Mont-Tens home was hit with a steel case bomb that landed in a paved alley

directly behind his house. Tens who was enjoying a bath at the time was rattled to his feet by an explosion that shattered numerous windows in his house. But the German gambling boss was not hurt. To the police, he claimed he had no idea who might have wanted to do such a thing. Said it must have been the work of some mischievous boys with a cannon cracker.

I love those terms. He must have had a cannon cracker, I guess. Ah, these crazy backats with the cannon crackers. The bombs kept flying. Jimmo Lerys, Hallstead Street, these crazy backats with the cannon crackers. The bombs kept flying. Jimmo, Jimmo Leary's Hallstead street, gambling in Poryon was hit with the biggest bomb of all. Buildings blocks away, shook from the force of the explosion, sending people running down the street,

but O'Leary was unharmed and told the police the explosion must have been the result of a cap on a gas pipe blown out or something. Over the next years, there would be dozens of bombings. It took place in saloons, pool rooms, gambling parlors, residences, even a southside police precinct. No one was ever convicted, and incredibly no one was ever killed. With the bomb shine to spotlight on a lot of illegal gambling to organize crime.

With more and more social activists now protesting the immorality of gambling, they were gaining support from a population that had become tired of hearing about the concept bombings. Big Jim O'Leary's retired and sold his operations December 1st, 1911. The gambling wars raged on with 10 strategically bombing big Jim's many successors until a few years later when an Irish American known as Hinky Dink Kenna, not kidding. Oh, fucking Hinky Dink allegedly stepped in and mediated a peace settlement for the price of $40,000. And what a fucking nickname. Hinky-Dink must have sounded way cooler back then than it does now.

If I was a popular and powerful politician, a friend of the underworld, which kinda was for decades, I feel like I would push pretty hard for a nickname other than Hinky-Dink. Hinky-Dink ranks right up there with Twinkle To, twinkle toes in terms of a tough sounding nickname. Despite the truth, the city was still sick of the debauchery and vice. When a police officer was then killed in a shootout July 13th, 1914, the board of 15, a powerful citizens organization comprised of ministers and temperance leaders, declared war on all commercialized vice in the city. The mob was being driven further underground.

By this time, a well-known study on gangs Chicago by academic Frederick Thrasher estimated there were 1,313 gangs in the city. Many of them Irish. These gangs had everything from enforcing tribute payments to mustering up democratic votes, to bullion newspaper vendors, and to selling more of a certain paper, which one will William Randolph Hearst paid gang called the Reagan's Colts to do for his paper, the Chicago American. But while Chicago would once been a wide open town with these things were somewhat tolerated, that would be no longer. Prohibition was coming. By 1918, the temperance movement that would be coming all out prohibition was well on its way to success. The war in Europe had aided their cause. Grain savings limits on alcohol production were imposed,

and there was a heightened concern for the moral well-being of young men in uniform. The temperance leaders and hellfire preachers crusading against liquor organized into a well-funded lobby. Nine states had already gone dry by the time the US Senate passed legislation banning the use and sale of alcohol experience nationwide. In January of 1919, the 18th amendment was passed, which prohibited the manufacturer's sailor consumption of alcoholic beverages on January 19th. A year later, the laws that would regulate enforcement

of the amendment came into effect. These laws will become known as the Volstead Act, named after Andrew Volstead, the Minnesota Congressman who first introduced the prohibition legislation in the House of Representatives. The Volstead Act laid out theitty-gritty details of prohibition. Also spelled out the exceptions requiring a government permit, which included Sacramento wine, medications containing alcohol, a hard liquor prescribed by a physician, flavoring

extract, serbs, and more. The penalties for violations of the Act range from a $500 fine for first offense to a $2,000 fine in five years in prison for repeat offenders. And this act, of course, would also bring about a very unintended result. The vice that the temperance movement supporters and moralists have been trying to drive further underground with his act would fucking explode. Because when it comes to drugs, including alcohol, no one will fucking ever, ever, ever put that

genie back in the bottle. Make it illegal and you just give organized criminals a massive income stream. That shit is here to stay forever. You can legalize, you can tax it, you can regulate it to make it as safe as possible or in my opinion, you can dilute yourself and to think in a true war on drugs victory is ever possible. Big Tim Sullivan Morrissey's New York Irish mob successor, who we mentioned previously a bit ago, had died in 1913 under mysterious circumstances after being diagnosed with syphilis, so maybe not totally mysterious. But first, he created a system that made making a

shitload of money selling illegal booze possible. If you based on two things, muscle and patronage. You use muscle to get yourself into a position of power, then use patronage to take care of those who got you into that position. Unlike today's John Morrissey, Big Tim and those who came after him would move the Irish mob away from the political machine and towards the everyday man, the saloon keepers, businessmen, shopkeepers, and fellow mobsters. These were the people who would all work together to devise a system for making a top quality product, storing it, and delivering it to the customer, and making so much fucking money. And one of the people who would step up to the plate to organize a system was Owen Victor Madden, another underworld Irish legend.

One, One Madden aka the Duke of the West Side was a street punk and a killer. His nickname was literally just the killer, who transformed himself into an underworld star. Born on Christmas Day in 1891 in Liverpool, England, to poor Irish parents, His name was literally just the killer who transformed himself into an underworld star. Born on Christmas Day in 1891 in Liverpool, England to poor Irish parents, he was sent to live with an aunt in New York City when his dad died in 1903. The aunt or aunt lived in a shitty tenement in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of Hell's Kitchen located on the west side along the Docks of the Hudson River between 14th and 57th streets.

The neighborhood's boundaries will change somewhat in later years. Hell's Kitchen had supplanted the old five points district as the spot to be for young Irish gangsters. It was an immigrant neighborhood full of Irish, Germans, and Italians, beset by constant noisy traffic and an elevated railway on one side in the Hudson River railroad on the other. In 1910, a report by a group of social workers described it as full of monotonous ugliness, much dirt, and a great deal of despair. Yeah, it sounds absolutely fucking horrible. A kid spent their time hawking newspapers, fighting, picking pockets,

swimming in the Hudson River, or flying pigeons from tenement rooftops. When Owen arrived, the area was in control of the Go for Gang, also known as the Go for Gang.. Not the best gang name. It sounds about as tough as a bad news bears or little rascals or something, but they actually were very tough. They would brick back the shit out of you. And they often clash with the Hudson dusters or Greenwich Village, also with themselves. The gang's leaders never lasted for more than a few months. Fellow members constantly taking them out. Many of its members were notorious in the press for violence like like happy Jack Mulraini, who murdered someone else known as Patty the Priest, for laughing at his facial

disfigurement. So maybe Jack was not all that happy. There was also mallet Murphy, who routinely bludgeoned unruly customers in his saloon with a wooden mallet. God, bludgeoning people. That's a rough night when you go out for a few drinks and uptime one on and wake up sometime

the next day with the worst headache of your life, not from the alcohol, but from being literally bludgeoned. There was one lung colon. These fucking names killed me. Who started a fashion craze in Hell's Kitchen. When you black jack of policeman, stole his overcoat, then gave it to his girlfriend to wear as a trophy. The goofers were also known for frequently raiding and robbing the West Side Railroad yards.

It would be here that only the killer madden established a reputation as a fearless hoodlum, leading to packing Goofers on railroad raids in which they made off with whatever they could. Close food, boo, sometimes guns and ammo. Madden was good with weapons, particularly a lead pipe wrapped in newspaper. Okay. Why was it wrapped in newspaper? I'm guessing so people would think that all you had was a, oh look at that, just a in newspaper. Okay, why was it wrapped in newspaper? I'm guessing so people would think that all you had was like, oh look at that, just a world of newspaper.

Oh, come on, I don't even have to defend myself. And then the fucking lead pipe cracks your skull or bust your ribs or breaks your arm or whatever, and then it's all over. Think about how psychotic, violent, tough, and fearless you would have to be to make a name for yourself as a tough guy in this underworld. Madden rose to become the leader of the goofers

and was arrested according to historical records over the course of his life, 57 times. They clearly did not have these three strikes in your out kind of programs to keep people locked up back then. On one early occasion when he was arrested, Oane bragged to a police reporter that he'd never worked on on his day in his life and never intended to. When the reporter asked him to jot down a record of his daily routine the then teenage gang boss obliged and he wrote Thursday

Went to a dance in the afternoon went to a dance at night and then do a cabaret took some girls home went to a restaurant Stay there until Friday morning Friday spent the day with free to Horner, which is like official girlfriend. I looked at some fancy pigeons with free to hornor, which is like official girlfriend. Uh, looked at some fancy pigeons. Ha, met some friends in a saloon early in the evening, and stayed with them until five o'clock in the morning. I love fucking fancy pigeons, that detail, right? This guy's party until five in the morning, take a random girl's home, hanging out with

his main girl, and you know, sometimes, take some time to check out some fancy pigeons. Saturday slept all day, went to a dance in the Bronx late in the afternoon, and to a dance on park and avenue at night. Sunday slept until three o'clock, went to a dance in the Bronx late in the afternoon, and to a dance on Park and Avenue at night, Sunday, slept until 3 o'clock, went to a dance in the afternoon and another in the same place at night. After that, I went to a cabaret, stayed there until almost, a stayed there almost all night. By the age of 18, he would earn his nickname the killer from the cops. He was said to have killed his first man in a local Italian merchant when he was just 14. Neighborhood witnesses adhered to a code of silence refused to testify against him. By the time he was in his 20s, only Madden was feared and admired by those who knew what was what, but still virtually unknown to the public at large.

That was because by now the American underworld was increasingly believed to be the exclusive domain of the Italian mafia, allowing the Irish Madden to slide around undetected. When booze was made illegally, became less of a thug more of an entrepreneur, opened a massive brewery in the middle of New York City. An early 1924, the Phoenix serial beverage company opened for business 26th street in 10th Avenue, using a government patent that had been secured by the brewery's previous owners, the Phoenix operated under the guise of government authorization, while producing an illegal product called madden's number one. In addition to taking on this enterprise, Madden also uses connections to establish a number

of popular nightclubs that will become the customers for Madden number one, which was a beer, as well as his bootleg rum, scotch, vodka, and even champagne. And if you want to know what Madden's number one tastes like, the superior bathhouse brewery in hot springs, Arkansas makes it today using the original recipe. Hot springs has a huge historical association with organized crime. Oane will help run that town. Towards the end of his life, we'll talk about that in a bit. This point is life.

Oane's New York nightclubs and speak eases would become super popular hot spots during the roaring 20s. And to keep them operating under Oane's control, that required protection. Cold hard cash will be stuffed into envelopes, pass from hand to hand, and end up in all kinds of places, a special police widow's fund, pockets, award bosses, district leaders, judges, precinct captains, lieutenants, shift commanders, tons of patrolmen, with so much law enforcement and political figures in only's pocket, the booze flowed freely. And it wasn't just mad and running figures in Owne's pocket, the booze flowed freely.

And it wasn't just mad in running New York's booze racket. Various other Irishmen were big figures in the city's underworld. There was Vanny Higgins, the leading Irish mob boss at Brooklyn, who had speedboats, even airplanes running room and bus, a rum and booze. Jack Legs Diamond from Philadelphia was a legendary Irish gunman and boo slinger, as well as an Irish born orphan and boostlinger as well as an Irish born orphan and teenager named Vincent Cole and the Irish were all over the city's political machine.

But the city's 36 wards more than half were run by bosses of Irish descent with numerous other district leaders precinct captains, election officials tracing their roots back to the Emeraldile. But these Irish also knew they couldn't do it all alone. So now they incorporated wasp, Jewish, Polish, Italian representatives, given everyone a piece of the pie. When Big Bill Dwyer was finally arrested and convicted on bootlegging charges in 1925 or 1920 and 1926, excuse me, it was an Italian Francisco Castiglia who stepped in and took on the daily run-ins of the operation. He'd run it until Big Bill was released early

for good behavior after serving 13 months. And from this gangster Lucky Luciano, also part of the system, a lot of Italians and Irish working together. Indeed, prohibition brought about a type of ethnic intermingling that had been unseen in the decades before. As long as you knew the password and could pay up, you could visit any one of the roughly 32,000

Speakeasies in the state of New York alone. Whatever your creed, race, or ethnicity. Roughly 32,000. Prohibition, what a fucking joke. All it was to keep beer and whiskey out of the hands of the most law-biting citizens. This is what many fear with gun control legislation, right? While it would actually reduce the overall number of guns and the hands of the citizens, or citizenry, my mouth's all over the place today. Who would it take them away from?

The most law-abiding citizens is the fear. And it would very likely also open up a massive black market for everyone else. And so many things like this, this I'm gonna paper to some, but in reality looks so different. Meanwhile, the fast-talking devil-made-care Irish gangsters became something like fashion

icons. The way hip-hop artists would be in the 90s, with many seeking to emulate their street style. New York City's love affair with the Irish gangsters may have reached his pinnacle in 1926 when Jimmy Walker, a smart-talking former 10-pan alley songwriter, was elected mayor. Walker was not a bootleger, but he was an Irish Catholic politician who'd like to drink and hang out in Broadway nightclubs where he shook hands and had shots with people like O'Neal the Killer Madden. Walker spoke publicly of his desire to see prohibition repealed and appointed a police commissioner who wouldn't be too hard on the mobsters. While the commissioner

was not hard on the bootleggers, the Irish mob was, if you didn't play by their rules. Independent operators were forbidden, and going against that could easily cause you to be found, you know, Degna Ditch with a smashed in skull or a bunch of bullet holes. Anyone who participated in bootlegging had to answer to the system and the guys at the top of it. Your distance from New York City did not matter. The Irish mob extended from Southern New Jersey to the Canadian border, monitoring all operations in between. But there was of course guys who risked execution to break out on their own and some had success, right? Others from within the Irish criminal ranks or excuse me often from within the Irish criminal ranks. A former member of the organization we mentioned named Jack Lague's

Diamond took on the system blaze his own trail for a while. The tabloids called in the most picturesque racketeer in the underworld most publicized the public enemies and most shot at man in America. Born in Philadelphia's parents had come from Ireland. He was first arrested at age 17 when he got caught breaking into a jewelry store in Brooklyn. After his release, he'd be arrested six more times before being drafted into the US Army. He then soon be charged with desertion along with several other crimes and served a prison sentence before Warren G. Harding pardoned him along with more than two dozen other federal prisoners. A diamond immediately headed back to New York and became part of the thriving prohibition

underworld, made money stealing, selling minks, jewelry, running card games. Then as head got bigger, he started picking off booze shipments from other Irish gangsters at gunpoint, hijacking trucks to belong to Big Bill Dwyer and only the killer madden. Soon after that, diamond nearly got gunned down and dry by shooting when a shotgun opened fire on his car on a 110th street. Diamond floored it, drove to Mount Sinai Hospital where he was quickly treated and went on to make full recovery. He would then move his operation to Green County in upstate New York, where he escaped

most of the system's fury, but things eventually caught up to him. After numerous assassination attempts, he would finally be shot three times in the head at close range while he lay in bed in Albany and a boarding house on December 18, 1931. And he would make a full recovery, but he would decide to retire. Now, okay, now he would, uh, he would not make a full recovery. He was very dead. I don't think anyone makes a full recovery after being shot three times in the head at close range. Uh, There was wider conflict as well. Though the New York system saw unparalleled cooperation between Italians and Irish, elsewhere ethnic mob wars raged like in Cleveland, St. Louis, Kansas City, Boston, Philly, Baltimore,

especially Chicago. Throughout the middle years, the Royal 20s gangland Chicago would come to define the violent nature of prohibition. In 1924, the balance of gangland power would shift to define the violent nature of prohibition. In 1924, the balance of gangland power would shift from the Irish to the Italians in Chicago. One day in early May of that year, Dean O'Banion, legendary Chicago Irish bootlegger, approached Papa John Torio, better bootleggers, better mobsters, Papa Torio. Uh, Torio was a major player in the Italian underworld and he was approached with an astounding proposition. O'Banion was looking to get out of the bootlegging business.

He said and wanted to Torio wanted to buy out his interest in the Seabind Brewery, an extremely profitable beer manufacturing operation jointly owned by him, Torio, and a few others. Brewery have been producing quality beer and Obanion's north side territory for three years under the protection of paid off precinct police. For half a million dollars, said Obanion, he would divest his share, explain that he wanted out because the bootlegging business had become too dangerous for his taste. Torio will be doing him a favor, bye, bye, and I'm out as a parting gesture, gesture of good will.

He even assisted or he'd even assist in the turning over of the last shipment. Torio jumped at the offer, even though his second command, a man named Al Scarface Capone, cautioned that he smelled a rat. Obanion and Torio along with two members of Dini's crew and under the watchful eye of two uniformed police officers who were on the payroll, met at the Seabind Brewery the morning of May 19th and their Torio delivered his payment of $500,000 in cash, which translates to almost $9 million in today's dollars. In return, Obanion escorted Torio around the facility, showing him the recently concocted shipment of beer ready for delivery to speak easies throughout the city,

showing the financial ledgers, listing the various bootlegging organizations that were scheduled to receive product. After Torio had fully assessed the operation and the last of 13 trucks was loaded by a crew of teamsters. He asked O'Banyan, so what will you do with yourself? Now that you're out, and Deany Smiley said, I'm retiring to Colorado to become a gentleman farmer. And now before Torio had even finished chuckling at that remark, from all directions, blocking all exits came a troop of blue uniforms led by none other than the chief of police, Morgan

Collins. You're all under arrest for violation of the Volstad Act announced Collins. He personally ripped the badges from the two corrupt uniformed officers on the premises. 130,000 gallons of beer were confiscated and 31 bootleggers were arrested. What Torio didn't know was it Stephen Brewery, the bus had been a set up. The Irishman had known about the police rage from the beginning and made sure that Torio was on the premises to be arrested. He had cut a deal. In the months before, a pair of Sicilian brothers named the Genus have been muscling in an Irish territory, flooding O'Banion's district

with cheap whiskey and fucking up his business. And this was O'Banion's payback for that. And now Torio was furious. And then tension between the Irish and Italians escalated. On November 3rd, 1924, weekly split the profits at the weekly split the profits meeting at the ship, a gambling Emporium in the Chicago suburb of Cicero that was jointly controlled by Torio O'Banion and others. Torio was not there that night. He was in Italy with his family presiding over the meetings, did with Scarface Capone who was there with five or six other Italians.

As Capone handed O'Banion his weekly cut, he noted that Angel O'Gena of the Jenna Brothers had lost heavily at the red table that week and left an IOU for 30,000 Components suggested to the group that in the interest of general amity they canceled Jenna's debt and O'Banion refused saying that Angel O'Gena had one week to pay and someone protested he said the Jenna could go to hell Scarface didn't say anything But clearly made a mental decision to send O'Banion to hell before Jenna was gonna get there But clearly made a mental decision to send O'Banion to hell before Jenna was gonna get there Exactly a week later on the morning of November 10th O'Banion was in the back of his flower shop working on his flowers three men under the front door

Few moments later the store porter heard gunshots dashed into the front room to find Dino Banyan on the floor surrounded by broken vases Blood pouring out of him from a couple different holes By the time police arrived he was dead. There was a classic Italian mob hit. The funeral would draw thousands, including Capone, Johnny Torio, and how insulting to the O'Banney family, the fucking Jenna Brothers. Now a true gang war would begin, and it would be a battle to the death. Unlike Torio, Capone had no interest in negotiation or appeasement with anyone. His bluntly stated goal was to take over not all the entire city, but then the county and then after the state, the entire Midwest. There would be no partners, only subsidiaries. His war would be bloody. During the three year period from 1924 to 1927,

there were according to the Chicago Crime Commission, a 150 pro-obition related killings just in Chicago. Let's look at one of them. On April 27th 1926, William H. McSwiggan, smart, highly touted 26-year-old Irish prosecutor in the state attorney's office, and a friend of some Irish gangsters, who shot dead. The son of a decorated Chicago cop and one year alone, he had won convictions in nine straight capital cases. At six o'clock in the evening of the 27th, McSwiggan was eaten, suffered 49-46 West Washington Boulevard, where he still lived with his parents and forecesters.

He was visited by Tom Red Duffy, a boyhood chump, known member of the West Side O'Donnell gang. Mick Swiggan left his meal unfinished, saying he was going to play cards with some friends. The group Bar Hopfero, while their last stop was the pony in, a two-story white brick saloon owned by Harry Madigan, once a member of Reagan's Colts gang and at a 56 13 West Roosevelt road the pony in was a mile north of the Hawthorne in which was Al Capone's new headquarters in Cicero A Capone scout spotted Klondike O'Donnell's Lincoln Klondike another Irish gangster parked in front of the pony in notified his boss immediately

Capone grabbed a Tommy gun quickly assembled a team of men, they deployed five cars with a total of four gunmen. The vehicles lined up half a block away from the pony in, waited for the Irishmen to appear. Shortly after eight, McSwiggan popped out, then the machine gun fire began. McSwiggan was shot multiple times through the neck, died as his friends tried to move his body. When his body was later found, it was a big scandal. The county's crusading prosecutor killed in the company

of known gangsters. The ineffectual investigation led to a grim conclusion. Justice was no match for the underworld. Evidence sees disappeared mysteriously. Witnesses conveniently forgot what happened. And police officers tipped off saloon owners that there would be an investigation given them plenty of time to appear squeaky clean.

Around this time and partially because of the McSwig and murder, the violence and general air of lawlessness brought about by prohibition gradually turned nearly everyone against the Volsted Act. Politicians and law enforcement now began to routinely condemn the act, acknowledging that it was patently unenforceable. Soon prohibition would be over in 1933, and with it organized crime for both the Irish who were waning in power by the late 1920s and the Italians lost a lot of money in therefore a lot of power and influence. Besides the end of prohibition, the beginning of the depression and also several high profile murders, the Irish mob were weakening now for another reason, the advent of

Lucky Charms cereal. This was huge. When Lucky Charms showed up in the fall of 1932 in America, debuting alongside a massive marketing campaign accompanied by a pervasive radio jingle, frustrated Lucky Charms, the magic league, delicious! So many newspaper ads featuring drawings of happy little leprechauns, it really led the American public in general to stop taking Irish people seriously. No one was scared of them anymore. Even when they killed people, reporters with right stuff like, looks like someone must have tried to take grouchy little patty, kill Kenny's pot of gold, silly rascal gunned down a couple

outside of the Creston theater before likely skipping away and searching for another rainbow. Cops feel confident they'll find and arrest him soon. They're on the lookout for trails of multicolored marshmallows and gingers dressed in green who speak in limericks. And of course that is all nonsense. Here's why the Irish power really was winning. I wish that last part was true. There was a change in the guard. Thanks to immensely powerful bosses like Al Capone and Lucky Luciano, the Irish were out. Italians and their Polish, Jewish and Black allies, they were in. Irish American bootleggers looking to make a buck increasingly ran up against a brick wall. Some never even made it to the starting gate.

Over the three year period from 1931 to 1933, right up until after, right up until, pro-Beation ended, virtually every high-ranking Irish American bootleger in the Northeast United States were systematically executed. Jack Legs Diamond, Vincent Cole, Danny Wallace, leader of the Irish gusting gang, Barney Walsh, mob boss of Brooklyn, Vanny Higgins, Danny Walsh, Rhode Island, I'm sorry,

Barney Walsh was the mob boss of Brooklyn and then Vanny Higgins and then Danny Walsh, Rhode Island, all executed. In the middle of this, O'Neill Madden was arrested on a minor parole violation. Could have gotten off, but chose not to. to smart guy hit for a year in prison. Then negotiated a formal exit at a New York's vice racket with Luciano and Castello and he quote unquote retired to hot springs Arkansas not really return at all. There he presided over collection of casinos hotels and brothels working as a kind of-site supervisor for the Italian mobsters back in New York who owned all of this.

Hot Springs became a resort town for mobsters on the run with One imagining it managing it all for the true power players above them. Okay, now let's shift gears just for a second to pop culture, a big pop culture moment for the Irish gangsters. In May of 1931, a movie called The Public Enemy opened in theaters across the country and exposed all of America to the Irish mob way of life, produced by Warner Brothers Studios, directed by William Wellman, the film starred a 31-year-old James Cagney who would play the secondary role, excuse me, in four previous Hollywood pictures, but was relatively unknown

beyond the New York stage. Cagney was three-quarters Irish, son of an Irish bar tender and amateur boxer, and an Irish Norwegian mother. In the movie Cagney played Tom Powers, an Irish American hoodlum who rises from the fettest stock yard district in Chicago as a kid to become a successful bootlegger. From the day it opened, the movie was a sensation. It incorporated many details from the life of Dean O'Banion. Cagney himself picked up many of his mannerisms from some Irish underworld figures he had grown up around in Manhattan. He'd actually been introduced to Killer Madden

sometime in the late 1920s at the infamous Stort Club. The Irish mob, what was left of them, they loved Cagney's portrayal. Although the film didn't go lightly on Tom Powers, sociopathic nature, Cagney gave the character a kind of hard, scrabble humanity. All right, now back to the real gangsters. Prohibition, as I said earlier, came to an end, April 7, 1933, when newly elected President

Franklin D. Roosevelt asked Congress to modify the VOLSTAD Act to permit the manufacturer of beer with an alcohol content of more than 3.2%. Congress did so immediately. Beer trucks once again rumbled to the streets, free of gangs to escort thousands of speakers, flung their doors wide and became legal beer saloons once again. Later in the year, the 21st Amendment would pass repealing all prohibition error laws and statutes. While mobsters lost a big revenue stream, they, of course, would now fade away quietly with the end of probation, but the rampant gangland murders in Chicago, New York did die down. land murders in Chicago and New York did die down. Mobsters quickly shifted to other rackets, narcotics, racketeering, fixing boxing matches, and so on.

But then another underworld blow would soon be struck. There would be coming a big national crackdown on political corruption, bringing the end of an era for the Irish mob who had been part of the political machine for nearly 80 years now. Franklin Roosevelt as the governor of New York had been the first to establish a panel to investigate corruption in the magistrate's court. Some years back to oversee the investigation, Roosevelt approved the appointment of recently retired judge and upright no nonsense guy, no friend of Tamini Hall, Samuel Seabury.

Seabury insisted on still being referred to as judge, even though he left the court of appeals in 1916. With his waspied demeanor, white hair and spectacles, he epitomized a new image in the catalog of mortal crusaders that had always been opposed to the Irish mob. But Roosevelt may not have done this for completely pure reasons. It was common knowledge by then that he was going to run for president. And his biggest opponent was Tammany Hall choice, a Catholic named Al Smith. If Tammany Hall was exposed, Smith would be forced out of the race. Seabury's first target would be the NYPD. Well known, the cops have been engaged in a corruption for decades, right?

Working alongside career criminals on the payroll. One common scam a lot of cops were involved in was called the doctor's racket, wearing a criminal posing as a patient, entered an office while the doctor was out and demanded immediate treatment for some fictitious ailment. Over the nurse's protests, he placed money in a conspicuous place in the office, began to undress Just as he dropped his pants cops would burst in and arrest the nurse for prostitution This would be followed by the suggestion that a cash payment could make the phony case go away

It's got to just pull in their own scams outside of the mob Now there was another scam called the land lady racket where innocent land ladies would be falsely arrested for running a house of prostitution When all else failed the vice squad would simply swoop down on Harlem, break into people's apartments, make random arrests of women again for bullshit prostitution charges. What about your fucking assholes? Consistently picking on women and maligning the reputations to make an easy buck. This will be a very displeased. The magistrates who in many cases were in on the scam chose to believe the cops rather than the innocent women charges prostitutes. If a woman refused or was unable to make a payoff, she could languish in jail for up to

a hundred days. Sometimes these arrests were made to meet precinct quotas as well. And then there were the cops who were being paid off by speakeasies and saloons. All this made a lot of cops a lot of money. And soon Seabury began an investigation into how so many cops had bank accounts flush with cash on salaries ranging from just $3 to $10,000 a year. Even the city's mayor, Jimmy Walker, was called to appear before the Seabury Commission. The mayor was feisty on the stand at one point said under his breath, to the politically ambitious, Seabury, you and Frank Roosevelt are going to hoist yourself to the presidency

over my dead body. But the scandalous trial would prove to be too much and Mayor Walker would resign. And soon, loads of gangsters, not only the Irish, would find themselves in the prosecution's crosshairs, most famously Scarface, Al Capone, nailed on tax evasion charges and sentenced to prison in 1933. Waxi Gordon, the beer baron in New Jersey, got himself prosecuted on tax charges. During his trial, it was shown that a 1930 is income from beer sales alone was almost $1.4 million.

In 1931, he brought home over a million as well. Like a Luciano, it would be prosecuted and convicted of running a prostitution racket by Thomas E. Dewey, a professional mob buster who had been a US attorney, special prosecutor and district attorney. At the end of the decade, in April of, another Irish sign would fall when, after months of investigation, the IRS went public with their findings. In a period from 1927 to 1937, Kansas City Irish boss Thomas T.J. Pentegraste failed to report his income to staggering figure of $1,240 plus $1,000 to fraud in the government of over

half a million dollars in taxes. Tracing all the money that Pentegrasse had received proved difficult since he kept negligible records, rarely used to bank account, almost always accepted only cash payments, made virtually all expenditures in cash, and sent large amounts by wire under assumed names. Pentegrasse parents were from county, temporary, and had arrived to the US through New Orleans. He'd become a leader in the Kansas City political machine after the death of his brother Jim Pentegrance. A month after the indictment, to the surprise of many, Boss Tom, as T.J. was known, entered into plea negotiations with the prosecution. Suffering from a chronic heart condition, he did not look forward to a contentious

embarrassing trial that he felt he could not win. Consequently, Pentegras pled guilty in exchange for a sentence of 15 months in federal prison. In addition, the judge announced the defendant will not be permitted to bet on the races or gamble in any form. He will not be permitted directly or indirectly to take part in any sort of political activity unless his full civil rights will be restored by a presidential pardon. Tom Pentegras served his time in prison and then lived out his remaining years in ill-health and out of the underworld game. All over America, Irish political machines were dying now.

The new deal designed by Franklin Roosevelt to counteract the Great Depression and boost industry made a federal system out of the services that had once been provided by political organizations like Tammany Hall. Now instead of regional political machines providing food and protection to the poor, well the government was doing that. Federal work projects, food stamps, low-income housing, once the domain in some form of the Irish mob were no longer. Culturally too, the great potato famine was almost a hundred years away, and the Irish no longer needed to scramble for a position in American society. They'd had a controlling interest in many

American institutions, police forces, fire departments, public works, they'd send their kids to school to become proper businessmen, doctors, lawyers, etc. and the need for the Irish political machine, just not what it once was. The Irish mob now had less organizing structure than ever. Then on June 22, 1944, President Roosevelt signed into law a piece of legislation that inadvertently probably had more to do with the death of the Irish-American gang culture than any other single factor. It was called the Servicemen's Re-adjustment Act, otherwise known as the GI Bill. Right, since the days of the Civil War, military service had been an alternative to gang life. For many young Irish-American males raised

in a culture where violence, early alcoholism, and machismo were the norm, the GI Bill offered a clear path out of the ghetto that did not involve the constant risk of imprisonment. Irish Americans took advantage of the new opportunity in droves, leaving behind a life a low-level criminality for a college degree, a house in the suburbs, and a family. But not all of them, of course. The remaining Irish mobsters would go full fucking bare grillas and provide adapt and overcome. Now untethered from a structure that prioritized wards, other institutions would rise up and

become the center for the Irish mob's activity, like the International Longshoreman's Association. By the mid-1940s, the International Longshoreman's Association and the port of New York boasted a membership of 40,000 workers. Most were part-time, many were beholden to a particular hiring boss or waterfront gang, all of which guaranteed a desperate and compliant workforce. The ILA may have advocated for workers during labor disputes, but also ruthlessly enforced the shape up system,

which was the foundation for the entire constellation of waterfront rackets. And the man who ran it for 26 years was a tough individual known to his workforce as Boss Joe aka Joseph P. Ryan Thanks to boss Joe many former bootleggers found new life as dock walloppers and union enforcers These iris control the docs in Jersey City and on Manhattan's west side Since many of the iris had initially come to the US and found workers ditch diggers bridge builders rail road workers They long had deep deep presence and union organizing

to protect against exploitation and unsafe working conditions in these labor jobs. For almost three decades, Joan and his union cronies all got fat together with Boss Joe somehow netting millions, despite on paper receiving a modest annual salary of about 20,000 plus an extra seven for expenses. At the same time, he became perhaps the most powerful labor leader in the country, a benefactor to mayors, senators, presidents, and assorted killers and hoodlums. But that didn't mean things always went smoothly to the docks. Sometimes Boss Joe had to take out the competition. Early in the morning of January 8, 1947, Doc Worker Andy Hintz left his

department on Grove Street in Greenwich Village, just a stone's throw from Pier 51, where he worked as a waterfront hiring boss for the last seven months. Hence never made it to work that day. In front of his building, three men appeared, one of them said, hey Andy, and then they all opened fire and pumped him full of six bullets. Hence was a tough bastard. He lingered for three weeks in the hospital, drifting in and out of consciousness. Before he died on January 29, he told his wife, Johnny Dunn shot me. And it was Johnny Dunn.

He was one of Boss Joe's workers slash henchmen, a man tasked with illegally importing drugs. He had also been the person that shortly before he hints his death, hints a told to go to hell. Second guy in today's suck to get shot up for saying that. After the murder, John Dunn is sidekick, squint shared and fucking squint. Why not? And a third man, former prize fighter, Danny Gentau, were immediately arrested for the murder of Andy Hintz.

The shooting that are arrested were major stories and local newspapers, especially since it involved a couple of notorious government for the ILA. John Dunn was found guilty as charged after the two other long shoresmen flipped and turned state's witness, and then Dunn was sentenced to death. Before long, Dunn now was ready to flip, just like his former friends.

Dunn suggested that if his life sentence, or excuse me, if it's death sentence, were commuted to life imprisonment, he could supply information that would solve over 30 murders along the waterfront. Beyond that, he could name the higher ups in the field of politics, who had protected all the rackets along the docks for years, including the very top boss of all. Within the prosecutor's office, seriously, was unwilling to make a deal. Weird.

It's almost like they were paid not to look further into things and or intimidated. So boss Joe continued to live up the high life until his own greed and arrogance finally led the rank and file to rise up against him. Eventually, the public turned against him on May 5, 1953, not long before being compelled to testify. Before a public tribunal known as the New York State Waterfront Commission, Boss Joe was convicted of stealing union funds, $500,000 worth, and carted off to prison. Now let's move into the 1950s.

When there was a lot of Irish on Irish gang movement. In December of 1954, a young attorney you've probably heard of, Robert F. Bobby Kennedy, had been appointed as Senator McCarthy's assistant counsel. Kennedy was the seventh and nine children born to Joseph P. Kennedy, well-known billionaire banker, entrepreneur, former U.S. ambassador during the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration. These iris were nothing like the people we've covered so far in our story. Joe Kennedy had been born into a political family in East Boston. The grandson of Irish immigrants, he made a massive fortune as a stock market and commodity investor, later invested as profits in real estate, and a wide range of business industries, industries across U.S. The younger

Kennedys were members of the upper one percent, the moment they were born. And one of those Kennedys, Bobby, was now about to go up against some Irish mobsters. In late 1956, when Kennedy was approached by Senator John J. McLean of Arkansas to take part in yet another major Senate investigation, this one looked into the role of mobsters and labor racketeers in the Teamster Union, the young lawyer jumped the chance. Officially, the investigation was to be called the Senate Select Committee on improper activities in the labor or management field. The committee and their investigators would be given the power of subpoena, you know, to subpoena, whoever they wanted. For Kennedy,

32 years old, looking to put his career on par with that of his older brother, John, who is now a senator, the offer seemed irresistible. Joe Kennedy's dad was fucking live it. He said he did not want Bobby's investigation to turn the Irish Catholic vote against John Kennedy, who is already gearing up for a later presidential run, but Bobby held his ground. Well, Bobby did not know was that his dad had other reasons not to want him to investigate Irish underworld figures. He'd been quietly dealing with the Irish mob for years. By dealing with, I mean, working with, to be clear, the following information is not

agreed upon by historical scholars. Some think it's nothing more than a hearsay in rumor. Many others think that the only reason there are not a lot of firm historical records about this is because Joe worked hard to hide the evidence. At the very least, there is a lot of smoke. If there's not any actual fire when it comes to the real origins

of the Kennedy family fortune. Back in the days of probation, the elder Kennedy for sure had been a rum runner and whiskey baron, an importer and wholesaler. He did purchase large quantities of alcohol, mostly scotch from England or Canada. The only thing up for debate is what happened to it from there. But really, why the fuck would you buy all this if you weren't importing it illegally into the US?

The booze was reportedly usually transferred from Nova Scotia to the eastern seaboard, where it was offloaded along the Massachusetts or Rhode Island coastline or somewhere in Long Island. The bootlegers and crimes synd Gets would take it from there. And the profits for Kennedy allegedly were staggering. The best scotch costs 45 bucks a case. The cost of shipping along Rumro would add another 10 bucks a case. Labor and payoffs, maybe another 10 bucks.

For an adjusted total of $65 a case. Or $325,000 for a typical 5,000-case shipment. It was in re-bottled sold to bootleggers for $85 a case or $325,000 for a typical $5,000 case shipment. It was in re-bottled sold to bootleggers for $85 a case, thus the net profit for Kennedy on a $325,000 investment could be a hundred grand tax free. And if you're doing this on a shipment or on shipment after shipment, right, that money rockets up quick. And now Joe's son Bobby is on the Irish mob's case, right? Chasing the people who may have made his family's fortune. Not good. The McClellan Committee turned out to

be one of the longest most expensive senatorial investigations in US history. Last and over two years, with over 1500 witnesses, Bobby especially focused on Teamsters Vice President Jimmy Hoffa. We'll not go into him deeply today. He deserves to be an episode of his own. As Bobby kept crusading against organized crime, Joe supposedly was taking a lot of these same figures and asking them to endorse JFK for president. Joe would even recruit Frank Sinatra to break the ice with some high up mob figures. He didn't know personally yet, especially in states where he thought JFK would have trouble like Virginia and Illinois. By far the majority

of these figures were Italian-American since the Irish mob had mostly been forced out after prohibition, forced to seek refuge in police departments and ward politics. JFK would win in West Virginia, went on to secure the nomination by August 1960, on election day, November 8th, everything fell into place. November 8th, 1960, excuse me, JFK won by a slim margin, but he did win. Bobby Kennedy would become his attorney general at the behest of Papa Joe and Bobby Kennedy subsequent actions were swift and unprecedented. The number of attorneys in the department's organized crime and racketeering section ballooned from 17 to 63. The number of illegal bugs and wire traps grew from a few to more than 800 nationwide.

Bobby drew up a list of top mob targets, a list that included Johnny Roselli, Sam Giancana, or Giancana, excuse me, supposedly some of the very men who pop a Joe had leaned on to get JFK elected. He had federal agents snatched New Orleans crime bus, Carlos Marcello off the streets and deport him. He obtained his closures by Joseph M. Velachi, a federal prison inmate who described the mob's organizational structure and initiation rights. Now in televised hearings. Velachi, a federal prison in May who described the mob's organizational structure and initiation rights. Now in televised hearings, Velachi introduced the terms dawn and capo to the American public and more.

Bobby Kennedy's actions were a knife in the fucking back to the mobsters that pop a Joe solicited. It especially angered the mafia because Bobby seemed to be pretending that his family's lily white Irish hands had never been tainted by any dirty money. When everyone in the underworld seemed to know that was not true, which brings us to November 22nd 1963. The day JFK was shot in Dallas during the presidential motorcade. Many would and still think the mob had something to do with it.

We covered the assassination JFK way back when with the two-parter, check it out for more detailed analysis of who might have been behind it, I still think the mob and the CIA had something to do with it. Whether the mob was behind it or not, JFK and Bobby Kennedy had perhaps unwittingly inherited a violent underworld legacy that could be traced back to the earliest grapples for power in neighborhoods like five points in Hell's Kitchen. The stakes have been raised to new levels, but the game was the same. Cooperation or confrontation and often death for defiance. JFK's death was a catalyst for a major cultural shift for Irish Americans.

One of their own was in power, if only for a short time, and that meant they had been freed of the prejudice that followed them to the US for a century. The fact that JFK was made a martyr offered them even more social acceptance in some ways. Now in the 1960s, many Irish Americans moved from the cities to the suburbs. Now the urban areas that had once served as the incubation areas for Irish American gangsters were out of Irish control. For some areas that happened quicker than others though and throughout the 60s some Irish gangs persisted mostly in Boston. This was perhaps due to the fact that unlike New York Boston never had a tamany hall system to organize its crime. The city was broken

down into a series of areas controlled by smaller gangs, doorchester, rock sparray, south Boston, etc. The Mullen gang based along the south Boston waterfront had spawned a whole new generation of gangsters throughout the 1950s and 60s, grappling for influence over the areas shipping ports, while the Italian Mafia moved on to their most profitable illicit trade since prohibition, importing heroin. In Charlestown, on the north side of the city, several gang factions tended to be broken down into small groups, and maybe just five, six members, often family affairs comprised

of brothers, and they sometimes operated in conjunction with larger rackitarian organizations, including the Italian Mafia. Boston's Irish American underworld was mostly a collection of workers for hire, men with wives, children, mortgages, and debt. These men made money as freelance thieves, hijackers, bank robbers, bookmakers, policy runners, and hitmen for hire, who sold their services to the highest bidder, no matter their nationality. One of the most famous criminal capers in the city's history, other than the Gardner Museum

heist we covered a little while ago, that likely had some Irish mobsters involved in it in some way, even of just after the fact, was the Brings job, a skillfully planned and executed robbery by a small-time collection of local Irish and Italian hoods, led by James Speck's O'Keefe, a professional criminal best known for his brazen shakedowns of gamblers and bookies in the Boston area, a seven-man robbery crew wearing identical Navy p-coats and Halloween masks, entered a bring storage facility in the city's north end, and made off with 2.7 million in cash, checks, money orders, and other securities. The robbery took place January 17, 1950, and was the largest single haul in US history at that time.

The crew agreed to keep the proceeds hidden for six years until the statute of limitations ran out. It was a good plan, but doomed to paranoia and greed. The robbers retreated into suspicious clicks. Each convinced that the other group was going to make off with all the money two years after the initial robbery. O'Keefe approached the Italian faction of the robbery crew demanded that they fork over 60 grand from the brink salute. His request was flatly denied. As gangsters often do, and they don't get their way. O'Keefe reacted poorly impulsively. He kidnapped Vincent Costa, member of the original breaking crew, held him for ransom in a Boston hotel room. The Italian members of the brink seeing that arranged for specs to be paid a Porsche the ransom in exchange for Costa's release, but

this now made specs a Mark man following this he survived to assassinate the attempts before he did the unthinkable and now testified against his fellow robbers in court. So, you know, so much for weight in six years and being rich. Now back to the gangs of Boston, a young man who would join the Mullen gang was named Pat Neat. He'd immigrated from Ireland with his family in 1952, made his first parade into the lighthouse pub where the gang gathered at the age of just 15. Eventually Mickey McDonough, uh, uh, Mickey, uh, Mickey McDonough and Mikey Ward, the leaders of the Mulling Gang, uh, paid or put, excuse me, come on, I got too many names, put

need to work allowing him to serve as a stickman for neighborhoods, card and dice games. The stickman's job was to hold the money during the game and call out no dice if a player's toss the dice did not make contact with the wall. In which case, the player crapped out, lost his wager, and often blamed a stickman. So to do this job, he had to be pretty fucking tough and not taking his shit from other thugs thinking you just fucked him over. Eventually, Pat worked his way out to becoming a member of the gang in earnest and one of its territorial defenders.

He was very tough. One legendary battle involving Pat took place in the summer of 1960 when a gang known as the Saints from the lower end of South Boston strutted onto the beach at Castle Island. Pat and E. Mikey Ward, small group of fellow Mullingang members were drinking beer, lounging the sun with their shirts off. The Mulling gang was outnumbered two to one, but Pat and E decided to brawl anyway. And later he would recall. So we all grabbed bottles and charged. Some of them scattered and we started picking them off, but one by one.

They fought back pretty good. I got sliced down to the bone on my left hand. They had knives we didn't, but we were tough for that day. We gave them a brutal, brutal beating. I remember one kid's face. It looked like we fucking skinned him. He got kicks so often.

Others had jumped and got thrown in the water to get away from us. They dog paddled over to a big wooden raft, but we had a guy on that raft with a two by four. He was hitting him in the head and kicking him, trying to beat them back into the water. That was one of the roughest gang battles I ever saw. We all had cuts, concussions, broken noses,

but they got the worst of it. Holy shit, these guys are fighting like the original five points gangster. This is a butcher bill type shit. Imagine being at the beach with the fam and seeing this level of violence break out. Just to do it on a raft, bashing people in the head, trying to swim for safety, some dude getting kicked in the face so many times looked like he'd been skinned. How did no one die that day? By the early 1960s the Mullen gang was the dominant gang in the neighborhood.

Serpice and the saints, the Red Wings, the Shamrocks and other gangs. They were also more than little reckless, right? They'd rob any place, even the lighthouse tavern, which was their own tang out spot. What an awkward place for them to rob. Just coming up with masks, you know, just take out the money, put it in the bag, lady. Pat? Patney? Is that you?

And no, it's not me modged got damaged come on just put them fucking money in the bag Is is a right pat? I know mods. I'm sorry. We won't do it again, but I'm definitely not pat I'll see you tomorrow. I'll bring you something nice make up for but I'm not patty. That's for sure The game. I became especially notorious for ragan commercial peers along the Boston waterfront The gang I became especially notorious for raving commercial peers along the Boston waterfront. That wasn't until they met how we winter, a raccoteer and a businessman who's main scam took place within unions. They formed an alliance leading many of the mull and gang to become card carrying members of the teamsters and longshoreman unions.

Now they mixed in with union picket lines, doing shit like when a truck operated by a scab driver would approach, they'd hop up on the truck, crack the driver in the fucking head with a blackjack, then fade back into the crowd and scurry down an alleyway. Hired muscle. These fuckers loved violence. And then things were about to get more violent. There would soon be a major gang war the most sustained period of violence, the underworld of the city of Boston had ever known. Started on Labor Day 1961, when two gangsters affiliated with the Winter Hill gang rented a cottage on Salisbury Beach with their two girlfriends and an old pal named George McLaughlin. The Gloucester was a member of a notorious crew of crooks and contract killers who were friendly with Winter Hill and based in the neighborhood of Charlottes Town. And at some point, a dipshit George grabbed the breast of a girlfriend of a Winter Hill gangster, not good on so many levels. This guy was a fucking idiot.

Two Winter Hill gangsters proceeded to give George a beating so bad they thought he was dead. They dumped his body on the front lawn of a local hospital. Truly not known if he was a livery or not. And while George was a fucking putz, not one to be feared on his own, his big brother was Bernie McLaughlin, a Charlestown gangster who sometimes did hits for the biggest mobsters in town. George wasn't dead. He was an intensive care, but still now the Charlestown gangster who sometimes did hits for the biggest mobsters in town. George wasn't dead, he was an intensive care, but still now the Charlestown boys wanted those Winter Hill gang members dead.

The Charlestown guys quickly put a bomb on the car of Winter Hill leader, buddy McLean, but McLean discovered it before it went off. And then it would be McLean's turn for revenge. He'd shoot Bernie McLaughlin dead in front of around oh 100 eye witnesses at noon in city square in Charlestown and none of those witnesses dared to testify against him like literally not one would testify. All the police could get McLean on was gun possession charge. He was sent away to prison for two years. Two years later late 1963 the very weak buddy is released from the penitentiary. George McLaughlin shot and killed a man he thought he heard say nice things about buddy at a party in Roxbury

Only George shot the wrong man Some innocent victim named Billy shared it suck to be that guy that day and now a lot more murders would follow May 3rd 1964 a man named Frank Benjamin bragged about how he was gonna take out the whole winter hill crew a Gunman loyal to the crew then shot Benjamin in the head and burned the fucking bar where he had been hanging out to the ground. The very next day, Benjamin's body was found in the trunk of a stolen car in South Boston minus his head, which had been buried in the woods. Week later, the Charles Town boys struck back killing buddy McLean's bodyguard. Month after that, the winter hill gang got more revenge. Two Charles Town boys boys were lowered to an apartment by a female friend of theirs and when they

got there, Buddy was waiting. Buddy was not a good buddy. He was a very naughty buddy. He was a bad buddy. He held a blowtorch to these two guys as fucking balls to get information and then after finding everything he needed, strangled them both dumped their bodies in the Boston Harbor. These guys are consistently terrifying. On September 4th, the bullet riddled body

of Ronald Dermity was now found in his car at a red light in water town. On September 2nd, Dermity had stormed into the capital cafe on Broadway in Winter Hill, gunned down a man he thought was buddy McLean. Unfortunately for Dermity, it was not. He shot a petty thief by the name of Charlie Robinson. When McLean heard what happened, put two and two together, he ordered Derm Germany's execution. This war continued to 1964 and into 1965. Men disappeared or were gunned down in the streets. By 1965, the winter hill gang was now determined

to get the eldest McLaughlin brother, Punchy McLaughlin. Yeah, sure, Punchy, why not? I love it. To do the job, Buddy McLean turned to a Mafia hit team led by Cadillac Frank Salemi and Joe Barbosa Who would later become one of the first criminals to ever enter the federal witness protection program Twice in early 1965 the Salemi Barbosa hit team ambushed Punchy This is ridiculous. The first time the killers came dressed as rabbis

Shot their target in the parking lot of a Beth Israel hospital Punchy lived but he did lose half of his jaw. My God. In the second assassination attempt, they shot off punchy's right hand like completely just gone. Man, the irony, a dude named fucking punchy has now literally lost half of his punching power and looks like someone punched part of his face off. His nickname really hits different now, pun intended. In October 1965, Franklin, Selemi was approached by two FBI agents named H. Paul Rico and Dennis Condon. Rico was well known for his animosity towards McLaughlin's. And two days after he initially approached Selemi, he passed him by in a diner and slipped him a piece of paper.

On the piece of paper was info regarding punching McLaughlin's whereabouts. Right? So the FBI, they can't legally kill this dude, but they can let a couple guys who they know will kill him. No worries. On October 20th, 1965, punchy McLaughlin is found dead. He's been shot nine more times. So the third time was a charm. There was no surviving this hit.

Nine days later, the Charleston crew, or Charlestown crew, excuse me, retaliates and kills their biggest target yet, buddy McLean. The divided Irish mob just constantly whacking each other. The successors to McLaughlin, two brothers named Connie and Stevie Hughes will be murdered next. Connie murdered May 25, 1966, four months later, his brother Stevie gunned down, excuse me, will stop that a red light. The Charleston crew would not, they were done.

Excuse me, they've been wiped off the map. Other gangs were now filled with wood. In early 1969, our old buddy Patney, Mullen gang member, stopped into a bar in your Boston called the Mad Hatter. There's kind of a no man's land outside of control of any one gang. On this night, Ne met a well-known member of the Colleen gang named James Whitey Bulger. I bet you recognize that name. By that time Bulger was a veteran bank robber who had done some time in Alcatraz. We'll do a suck on this guy a big one before long. On this day, there would be no time for the two gangsters to talk. Within moments, another member of the Mulling Gang named Mickey Dwyer ran in and he looked fucking rough.

He was missing his nose like all of it. Like he had woken up with his nose on his face that day, same as every other day in his life, and now he doesn't have a nose. Why? His nose had been completely torn off and blood was streaming down his face. He'd gotten into a brutal fight with Kenny Colleen and Kenny had shot him in the arm and then held him down and literally bit his fucking nose off. Can you imagine that happening? Just someone an inch away from your face and they've gone full animal and they're just biting, ripping with their teeth, blood spraying everywhere, so much pain and then your nose is just gone. You never forget that awful moment. That is burned into your brain forever. Wide Bulger was a member of the clean gang but Ne might not have known that and he somehow

escaped detection that day as the mull and crew now sped off and search their enemies. The next time these two would meet knee did know who whitey was. They were in the middle of an ensuing gang war. And their next encounter pat knee would shoot a bulger while passing by as bulger walked down the sidewalk. Bulger would shoot back knee would speed away neither man wounded a tit for tat mullen clean war went on for months when not fighting these guys are making money through robberies and hijackings mainly. In November of 1969, Pat and E. Kills Kevin daily now, one of the men who had participated in the killing of Pat's younger brother Peter,

who at least he thinks he kills him. But a few days later, he would be arrested and charged with attempted murder. Kevin daily was in a wheelchair, but alive. And then Kevin, Kevin daily would think better of his deathbed accusation and recant and need would get away with it. Now let's jump ahead almost three years to May 13th, 1972. This night, Donald Colleen, the Irish mob boss of Southy now, celebrates his daughter's birthday at his home and framing him a Boston suburb. At some point during the celebration, Donald gets a call.

After hanging up the phone, he tells his wife and father-in-law, he needs to run a quick errand, have a ride back. Few minutes later, Donna Mae Colleen and her father rush outside, find Donald slumped into the front seat of his car, riddled with bullets. He was the victim of a professional hit via a machine gun. The murder of the Colleen gang boss had gone off without a hitch. Most people suspected that the Mullen gang, probably acting with how he went her and the Winter Hill gang were responsible. They would be the ones now moving on the Mullen gang probably acting with how he winter and the winter hill gang were responsible

They would be the ones now moving on the Kling gang's territory Why do you bulge are the next biggest Kling would do his best to stop that He reached out to the very men who are responsible for Donald Kling's death and demanded a meeting At the meeting was pat knee represented the Mullen gang how he winter and numerous Italian Mafiosos Over the course of eight hours, they negotiated a settlement. Priority number one was that the city's gang wars come to an end and that everyone start conducting themselves like businessmen instead of violent thugs. For his part, Bulger promised that he would pacify Kenny Colleen,

Donald's younger brother, and force Kenny to step aside. A few days later, he does that. Why do himself tell us Kenny? It's over. Kenny's out of the business. No future warnings are coming. And Kenny decided to listen probably because he knew if he didn't use any killed. Why do you now take it over the clean gang and was in a good position to become the new Irish mob boss of South Boston? At the same time that why do you was emerged as a major player in Boston's

criminal underworld, the movies The Godfather 1972 and Godfather Part II, 1974, were becoming cinematic legends. The movies captured the fascination of people all across the country, but it also made it seem like the only underworld figures were Italian Americans, like the fictional Corleone family, and so the Irish increasingly found themselves cut out by business partners who wanted to work with the dawn. How fucking weird! Art affecting real life in such an odd way there. This didn't affect things too much in Boston, but in cities like New Orleans and Chicago, the Irish American mobster was virtually just done, eradicated. But in a little part of New York City, it was a different story still. By the mid 70s, the Mafia in New York had regrouped. We're bigger and stronger than ever. The five families, Gambino, Bonanno, Genovies, Luckezi, and Colombo had determined that they should have control over every racket and town, season control through a series of coups.

And they did control most of the cities crime. But on the West Side of Manhattan, where Irish American gangsters had now been operating for over 100 years, still wasn't the case. The Irish were going to battle for control of Hell's Kitchen. The battle for Hell's Kitchen would be more symbolic than anything. Things, you know, there weren't true rackets to control since the waterfronts industry had been supplanted by air freight and overland shipping by the mid-50s. A series of high-profile trials meant most mobsters have fled the city and the membership

of the ILA on the port in New York had dropped from a high of around 40,000 to just 18,000 in 1970. The current mob boss of Hell's Kitchen was Irish American Mickey Spalan, whose rap sheet listed more than 24 arrests. He'd gained an air-hood's respect by refusing to talk to the police even when it meant more time in prison, and he had tangled up with some Italian gangsters. The Italian mob had their eyes on two places, Madison Square Garden and the Colosseum, both of which employed thousands of people, and had unions where mobsters could shore up power and make

a lot of money. For years ever since the days of prohibition, right, these rackets have been divided between Italian and Irish control, but no longer. The Italian mob also had their eyes on the future Jacob Javits Convention Center, which was still under construction. So Fat Tony Salarino, boss of the Genovies family, decides his time to take out Mickey Spalon and his associates. For this Tony chooses an associate of his own Joseph Sullivan, a hardened Irish contract

killer who was released from prison in the spring of 1976 after serving 10 years on a second degree manslaughter charge. Eight weeks after agreeing to murder Tom Devaney, one of Spillon's top associates, Sullivan walks into a bar in grill in Midtown Manhattan where Mickey Mickey Spalans' right-hand man was having a drink with a few friends. Sullivan was in disguise, wearing an Afro wig, darkened skin, made him appear vaguely Hispanic or Middle Eastern, orders a beer,

sees Tom Devaney for a little while, until he's ready to make his move. After draining the last of his drink, he just walks over to Devaney, pulls out a gun, and just fucking blast him in front of a whole bunch of witnesses. Over the following months, Sullivan then eliminates two more of Spalans closest associates in a similar way.

One of these was Eddie the Butcher Kaminsky, who used his skills as a butcher to cut up the bodies of the people he murdered, and disposed them in the river. Eddie was taken out by Sullivan at the Sunbright Saloon, August 20th, 1976. And now Spalan was going gonna figure out who was behind this. To figure out how to go about it, Travels to Florida meets a man who once worked as a bootleger for only the killer Madden and is a legbreaker for the boss Joe Ryan, Eddie McGrath.

But Eddie now, 75, claimed not to know anything about it. So not knowing what to do, Spaland picks up his family, moves to Woodside Queens. And his place, a young and violent upstart takes control Irish American gangster James Jimmy Koonan and his right hand manned another Irish American Mickey Featherstone. By early 1977 Koonan controlled all the neighborhood rackets and hell's kitchen, but he was still worried about Spalans old enemies and the Genoves crime family. He wants to take him out, but knows he's not strong enough to do it on his own needs

a plan. The one he comes up with was the one that Fat Tony used against plan. Go to one of their own. He reaches out to the Gambino crime family based in Brooklyn. He would meet with Roy Domeo and gets him to back his play. Now he has backup. Coonan goes up against the Genovies family on his way from Keen's Burg New Jersey on May 5, 1977 where he lived with his wife Edna and, and their three kids, Kunin stopped at a food town supermarket, purchased an assortment of kitchen knives, and some jumbo plastic bags. Uh-oh.

And then goes on into the city. At the 596 club, Kunin meets up with Danny Grillo, his Italian buddy from Ward's Island, as well as three members of his own crew, Billy Beatty, Richie Ryan, and Tommy Hess. The plan was to whack Ruby Stein, a legendary loan shark, cut up his body, stick the parts and bags, dump him in the East River. Then he'd take over Stein's business, and that's exactly what he did.

Ruby was butchered. The loan shark's disappearance was reported in the papers a few days later. In the New York Post, it was hinted that Stein had been the victim of a group of Hell's Kitchen Gangsters, dubbed the Westies by one local detective because of their base in the West Side of Manhattan, and the name stuck. Over the next decade, the Westies would join gangs like the dead rabbits, whyos, and

Hudson Dusters as a permanent fixture in the city's underworld lore. Few days later, May 13, 1977, the end would come for Hell's Kitchen mob boss Mickey Spalan. He was summoned out of his house by someone who said he had to talk to him and then immediately shot and killed on the sidewalk. And who killed him? Roy D'Ameyle. As a present for Jimmy Cunin, who was now officially the mob boss of Hell's Kitchen, the brutal Westies were in charge. And soon after their brutal killings would get the attention of Big Polly, Paul Castelano,

boss of all bosses, head of the Gambino Mafia family. Their sit down would take place at the back of Tomasels restaurant in Baybridge, Brooklyn, February of 1978. At the meeting, Big Polly said that he was officially bringing the Westies into the fold. The Mafia would get 10% of their business, but they would also get 10% of the Mafia's business in Manhattan. And this was exactly what Jimmy Cunin wanted his whole life. Immediately following the sit down of Brooklyn, the money started to roll in. Mickey Featherstone for one saw his weekly pay as Kunin's muscle and crease from about 150 a week to 4000 a week. Other opportunities to make money proliferate, especially in some construction rackets where

the Westies were hiring themselves out as mafia subcontractors. By the late 1970s the Westies were feeling like they were the mafia's employees though, not their partners. As much money as they were making the Italians were making so much more. Sound like a good deal at first was in many ways, but also played right into the Italian mobs hands. Throughout the 80s, the Westies would grapple for power, but never truly compete with the Italians spending too much time fighting fellow Irish members. Kunin would even have right hand man Featherstone framed for murder when he heard that he was trying to take over his throne. Let's now check in on a different Irish gangster in New York. December 11, 1978, James Jimmy Burke, an independent

Irish underworld contractor, aims to pull off his greatest crime yet. For years, he operated in Queens, mostly smuggling untaxed liquor and cigarettes. He hijacked trucks, leaving JFK, what was actually well liked because he usually left a couple hundred bucks for the airport's truck drivers that he stole from. Now Jimmy the Gent is aiming for something bigger. On December 11th, he and a group of mass men armed with rifles and pistols hit building 261 at the left, left, Hanza terminal at JFK airport. The high school is off without a shopping fire. The robbery crew loads bags containing 5 million in cash and another $875,000 jewelry into a van. But what should have been a celebratory moment would seem

like the beginning of the end. A spree of killings connected to this high started in early 1979 continued throughout the year. Before it was over more than 15 murders, more than 15 would be attributed to fallout from the left-hunts of Heist. The entire robbery crew except for Burke were all fucking murdered gangland style. Man flashbacks to the Garden Museum Heist story again. Even when you get away with the Heist, as far as law enforcement goes,

how often do you really get away with it? How often do you just get fucking smoked by a fellow Heist member? Wives and girlfriends and new details about the Heist were also killed, their bodies cut up and dumped and rivers and vacant lots. Burke only escaped death himself by getting arrested on a parole violation on April 1979. And then Henry Hill, Burke's half Irish pal, puts Jimmy the Gent behind bars for life.

Hill was facing life imprisonment on various narcotics violations at the time and as part of a deal with the feds, he testifies against Burke, not about the left-hands to Heist, in which Hill had no direct involvement, but about one of the subsequent murders. Burke was given a life sentence and Hill disappears into the witness protection program. No one it seems benefited from that massive Heist in the end. Fantasy ruined again. Henry Hill.

Anyone else thinking of Hank Hill from King of the Hill when I say Henry Hill? Would later become the subject of a best-selling book called Wise Guy written by Brooklyn native Nicholas Pellegi and then would see himself portrayed by actor Ray Leota in Goodfellas. Director Martin Scorsese beloved 1990 Mafia film based on that book and Henry Hill would not be the first or last Irish mobster to end up in witness protection. The Omnibus Crime Control Act, a massive piece of legislation enacted in 1968, had established within the U.S. Justice Department a number of new far-reaching directives. Among them was the witness protection program, which was designed to induce criminals to turn against

their co-conspirators by offering them a new name, identity, and place to live after they testified in court. As a sub-tenant to the witness program, the FBI initiated an ambitious new system for cultivating informants. Individual agents were now encouraged to recruit and register CIs even when they were still active criminals or active criminals. And this would not surprisingly draw some pretty messy lines. Who was an agent? Who was a mobster?

When agents did illegal things, sometimes purely for their own gain, did that make them mobsters? Who was loyal to whom? The man who would figure out how to play all these complicated factors against one another for their best gain, or personal gain, was a Whitey Bulger. Agent Dennis Condon, a native of Charlestown, opened a file on Bulger with the intention of signing him as a CI. Condon and Bulger had a few conversations, with the intention of signing him as a CI. Condon and Bulger had a few conversations, much of which Condon paraphrased, paraphrased,

in a series of FBI reports filed as far back as the early 70s. In 1975, Condon was approaching retirement, turned over the Bulger file to an ambitious young agent in the Boston office of the FBI named John Connolly. The relationship to develop between Bulger and Connolly will become a huge landmark in the history of the Irish mob. This relationship, a dramatized version of it played out on the big screen in the Johnny Depp, Joel, Edgerton movie, Black Mass.

Another solid villain portrayal, by the way, with Depp as Whitey, so casually and calmly cold-blooded, will Connolly approach Whitey, offering him protection from his enemies, if Bulger delivered crucial information about the Italian mafia's activities. Bulger jumped at the deal and then went back on a pretty crucial part of it, not murdering people. Connolly did his part, dissuading prosecutors from filing federal indictments against their star witness. Other indictments float in, one set would result in nearly the entire upper echelon of the new Winter Hill gang being imprisoned, including how he went her, who was sentenced to 10 years. Boulder now becomes leader of the winter hill gang, which had absorbed the previously

mentioned Colleen and Mulling gangs and continued to help bring down the competition. In 1921, in the Dairy and Late Night Operation, the FBI planted the bug in the north end headquarters of Genaro, Jerry, and Guillo, the Boston Mafia's boss. The bug would eventually bring Jerry down along with four of his brothers and nearly a dozen associates. And rumor has it that why he was behind it. The era of the informant had truly arrived. On December 18, 1905, big polycastelano was whacked, killed on a busy midtown street during

rush hour. Now there would be a new boss, the Gambino family, a man named John Gotti. Gotti would have aligned himself with Coonan and the Westies back in New York now obviously But what Koonin didn't know was that while waiting trial for murder Waiting it he would have been he had been set up by a Mickey Featherstone who had turned states witness and was planning on bringing a whole Bunch of gangsters in New Yorktown from outside prison Featherstones wife Sissy was working to collect evidence that would help her husband in the end of judge would overturn Featherstone's murder conviction immediately, Kunin went into hiding, but was eventually located in New Jersey and arrested.

Several gang members upon hearing of Featherstone's cooperation struck their own deals with the government. Bill B.D. became a government informant agreeing to testify in court against the Westies after pleading guilty to Rico charges. Throughout 1986 into07, state murder indictments were returned against various members of the gang. Then in March, Rudolph, Giuliani, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, future New York City mayor, stepped in and announced a massive federal indictment, the biggest of its kind yet. Ten members of

the Westies, including those already hit with state indictments, were charged on 14 counts of having taken part in a racketeering conspiracy. The RICO charges dated back some 20 years and included extortion, loan-sharking, counter-fitting, gambling, and 16 counts of murder. Attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder. The trial for all this began in September, exactly a year after Mickey Featherstone's cooperation with the government was first announced. Everyone from Hell's Kitchen who came to see the trial could not believe that Mickey Featherstone, the hard Vietnam vet, the mob killer, who'd enforced a code of silence and honor with his fists or a gun was now dressed in a suit and a tie, speaking in a soft voice about the litany of crimes that his former friends had committed. 1988, the verdict would be announced.

Guilty on all counts, the Irish mob of hell's kitchen was finished Now only one Irish boss remained in Boston, why do you bulger? But instead of getting into the rest of his life in times now we'll leave that for another episode. We'll do here soon Way too much for one episode This one's already huge It'll be fun to do a deep dive on one Irish gangster. Next time we jump back in this crazy ass world. Time right now to bounce out of this timeline. Good job, soldier.

You've made it back. Barely. BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!

BAM! Alright, before I wrap this up, just one more quick, super important and very, very real sponsor. Today's time talk is brought to you by Whip-Oooom! Irish mob addition. Are you getting soft? Not feeling willing to do whatever it fucking takes to get what yours? Don't even feel like bashing some full school with a brick bed or biting off part of their

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During the early years of prohibition, Irish organized crime was given a big adrenaline boost when big billed Dwyer emerged among many in New York's underworld as a leading boot lager. Then following his arrest and trial for violation of the Volsted Act during 1925 and 1926, fellow Irishman, only the killer Madden rose to prominence. Did an image search for only by the way? My God, he looks like a hard motherfucker.

Some serious battle scars on his face. And real, you do not want to fuck with me looking his eyes. Not surprising for a dude, his nickname was literally the killer. The end of prohibition meant the virtual end of the domineering Irish mobster, but there were still plenty of Irish gangsters around and involved in various levels of at least somewhat organized crime. There were a ton of street gangs around the country, almost all along the east coast, and there were still a bunch of active individual Irish mobsters who'd hired themselves out to perform others dirty work. By the end of the 20th century, Irish American mobsters were mostly all gone,

either caught and imprisoned, killed by each other, killed and gang wars with the Italian mob, assimilation into non-Irish gangs or just a victim of times of change. Their ranks were thinned down to just a few organizations in New York and Boston, mostly the Westies in New York and Whitey Bulger and the Winter Hill gang in Boston until they will collapse as well. And the run is over. Still, historically, for many years, Irish Americans ruled America's underworld. They had their hands on almost every illegal racket there was from union activities to politics, to rating shipping ports to the illegal manufacturer and sale of alcohol and the prohibition era

They also ran drugs took out opponents went ahead to head with a Italian mobsters Fought in so many gang wars the most famous Irish mob wars had to do with everything from encroaching on one another's territory To grab it a member's girlfriend's boot Whenever something happened to a fellow gang member the rest of his gang would be there to back him up unless unless of course that someone was vying for his spot. Or he could rat on him to get a reduced sense. Along the way, the Irish would through gang connections largely enter US politics, peaking, culminating with JFK's ascendancy to the presidency of the United States. They also infiltrated many cities, police departments, fire departments, local governments across the country. For many years, the connection between these law enforcement institutions and the underworld

was a lot closer than most Americans thought. I was surprised by how connected it all was. The relationship between Irish gangster and Irish law enforcement would even lead in some ways to the modern FBI informant. And that relationship would pound the last nail in the coffin for the Irish mob is a real criminal institution of any sort numerous formers numerous former Irish mobsters would turn states witness and find themselves in federal protection Talking against the very men they had fought alongside

Before it was all over holy shit was there so much violence dudes biting each other's ears and noses off bashing in skulls with brick bats Smash and dudes in the head with a two by four blow torching. Some guys fucking chicken skin duffel bag. I think two guys actually so much insanity. And I'll start with starving immigrants just trying to get a little slice the American dream. House, wife, kids, good job, good friends. You deny a group of people the real chance to get that in honest way. The story is just a reminder that inevitably some of us meat sex are going to find a different way to grab that dream. Take it by any means necessary. Had there been less discrimination towards the Irish when they showed up. Had there been less discrimination against them back in the UK, would they have ever made their mark in the American underworld like they have highly doubt it?

I mean, some would sure. I think there will always be some crime, of us randomly more psychologically pre-deposed to it than others But you take away the five points hellhole gang incubator the history of the Irish and America would not include a lot of the stories I shared today Bad for my storytelling purposes, but good for the many many people that Irish gangsters destroyed in some way or another Time now for today's top five takeaways. Number one, the Irish mob was an integral part of the United States Underworld. Going back to the 1850s, when political bosses used recent immigrants for votes in exchange for food and shelter. Living a life on the margins incentivized Irish Americans to form gangs to protect themselves and then to climb out of poverty using whatever means they had.

Number two, to be born in colonial Ireland was more than likely to be born into a horrible fate. British landlords made very restrictive laws. They made it literally impossible for any Irish to climb out of poverty. And they didn't lift a finger when mass starvation began as a direct result of many of their policies. Millions of Irish immigrants would seek a new life with opportunity in the land of the free over the century following the famine, and some of the toughest and most brutal would give rise to the Irish mob.

Number three, brass knuckles, spiked clubs, hatchets, a variety of knives, Tomahawks, earbiting, nosebiting, kicking faces in those damn brick bats. Irish mobsters were often savage in their violence. Sometimes you were lucky to just get shot. Number four, the era of the Irish gangster took a big dip in the middle of the 20th century, when many Irish criminals ended up working for hire as opposed to working within organized gangs or made it out of poverty by joining the military, or could actually make good living in regular jobs after being accepted culturally in America.

Still, some gangs would still persist, eventually, in Boston until the age of the FBI informant led to the near total demise of the Irish-American criminal underworld. Number five, new info, early in the 2000s, FBI agents were led by an informant to a series of graves spread throughout the Boston area. The first was a gully alongside the Southeast Expressway in Dorchester, which contained

three decomposed corpses. These three murder victims killed between 1983 and 1995 had originally been buried in the basement of a home on East Third Street in Southy, but they were transferred when the house was sold in late 1905. One of the skeletons exhumed belong to a 26 year old woman strangled the death. Another skeleton had his teeth ripped out before being killed, resulted in a brutal torture session. A few months later, another killing field was unearthed at 144 Quincy Shore Drive.

Another grave was uncovered in September of 2000. At TN and Beach in Dorchester, investigators dug up a pile of bones, or tenion, excuse me, tenion beach, investigators dug up a pile of bones, generations of dead mob associates lay beneath the surface of Boston. Want to guess who is thought to have put those bodies there? Derek Skate-Skeet-Molot or maybe Whitey Bulger? And with that little tease to an episode we'll do soon, I will close this out. Time suck, tough, right takeaway.

The Irish mob has been sucked. Another fascinating, I hope, slice of US history. A big thank you again to the Bad Magic team for helping production. Thanks to Queen of Bad Magic, Lindsey Cummins. Thanks to Logan Keith, the art warlock for directing and producing today. Thanks to Biddelixer for upkeep on the Time-Zuck app, the art warlock again, creating the

merch at BadMagicMers.com, helping run the socials with the team of Ryan Handlesman, Tyler C as well, Emily the Cardi. Thanks again to Sophie Evans for lead research. Oh man, killed it this week. Also thanks to the all-seeing eyes moderating the cult to the Curious Private Facebook page, the mod squad for making sure a discord keeps running smooth and everyone over on the time

suck a bad magic reddit threats. Next week on time suck, we returned to crime, murder more murdery. The Bible belt strangler, another voted in topic. The Bible belt strangler is an unidentified serial killer or serial killers who murdered numerous women in the southeast of the United States. Maybe.

Killer was only given this name recently by a high school student studying a series of unsolved murders. The victims of the Bible Belt Strangler generally classified into a group previously called the Redhead Murders. Throughout the 1980s, random women were turned up dead along highways and southern states. Similarities among the cases were disturbing. Victims mostly young women who often had red or reddish hair and had been strangled.

Most of the victims were Jane Doe's, their names, lives, how they ended up dead on the highways were unknown. Investigators believed that many of these women were homeless and or sex workers, sometimes runaways. They were most likely not murdered in the places they were found. They had no close family ties and it seemed like no one was looking for them.

As more and more victims were found along the highways, investigators started to wonder if the murders were connected. Maybe some unidentified serial killer, and that unidentified serial killer, thought to be a trucker, driving to the southeast, picking up vulnerable women, strangling them, leaving their bodies along the road. As the months and years passed, without arrest or identification, investigators changed with theory. It seemed likely that there wasn't just one killer. There were probably multiple killers, some serial, some not working in the same area. There was still disagreement

among law enforcement and the public about which women are considered redhead murders victims. There are suspects in a few cases, but currently not one individual suspected of being the Bible belt strangler. In the case of the red Head murders, there are far more questions and answers. So we'll explore this mystery next week. Discuss the Red Head murders, the women who have been identified, those who remain Jane Does, the work of a bunch of really cool, smart,

high school kids who have helped identify a lot of these bodies, will cover the men who have been connected with some of the cases, cases and why it has been so difficult for the police to find the killer or killers. Right now, let's head on over to this week's Time Sucker Updates. Let's start off laughing at someone else's expense. Complete fucking disgusting jerk off to generate.

Cress Van Wengart writes, Dan, you beautiful bullshit sling and bastard you got me. Some background. I'm a farmer. I was delivering some of my corn to the local processing plant in my semi-truck while listing the time suck via an FM transmitter. This is important in my semi-truck. I pulled into the lot listing the skull and bones suck, no problem. I didn't think that the signal strength on my little transmitter was powerful enough to escape my truck. But it must have been powerful enough to intrude on the Spotify playlist of some of the other 30 plus trucks in the lot also using a transmitter.

I use 88.7 as it is one of the only dead frequencies, so do most people around here. Things going great until you started waxing eloquently about George H.W. Bush beating off in a coffin While recounting his sexual conquest of 13 other guys who are all reading off or some other silly bullshit Suddenly the CB radio that we were that we drive it used to speak to each other and plan operators crackled with whoever is transmitting on 88.7 what the fuck is transmitting on 88.7. What the fuck? Q a bunch of farmers slash truckers all switching to 88.7 to try to catch what's going on and a bunch of confusion and disgust dripping from the CB radio as I try to look like I was not the offender. It was glorious and horrifying. I'm still going to listen on 88.7, but question that decision when I was still going to listen when I flipped over to the mouse utopia episode on my next trip and arrived at the plant again just in time to hear you bullshitting about falling birth rates due

to underground hand tied jerk off club. I have too many jerk off jokes clearly. Keep up the good work loyal listener Cress. Thank you Chris. I appreciate you spreading the stuff in a brand new way. I say keep transmitting refuse to identify yourself. The Jeffrey Lungren two- parter. Oh, man, those are great ones for everyone to hear. I think, and this spring and summer, we have a whole bunch of especially horrific serial killers coming up. So share the joy. Hail Nimrod. And now sweet sex Sarah says shares how she learned that no topic is safe from crude horses here. I'm

guessing says is not your real estate. Sarah writes, hello, Dan, who sucketh on a high and also the bad magic team. I've got a double commons law for you. So strap on those boots soldier. It's a long one. I'm a long time bad magic fan who's just recently become a space leader. I'm a letter carrier for the US Postal Service. And I spend several hours a day in my truck alone delivering mail. Your podcast keep me highly entertained.

So thanks for carrying my boredom. Several months ago, after making my way through the back catalog of scared to death and as we dumb, I started time-suck. Jumping around episodes, picking what seemed interesting to me. I for hearing a few serial killer sucks in my house, I knew that I needed to pick a less aggressive topic to listen to at work. I chose episode 284, the Amish Life, thinking, how inappropriate could he possibly be? And put it on Bluetooth speaker, my work truck.

My truck is very loud. So I had the speaker turned way up to hear it. I had my window down delivering mail, not a soul in sight. You were describing normal, amish life, nothing weird. And you led me into a false sense of security, damn you. Damn you, Luciferita. Just as you were describing what they wear, I saw one of my customers come out of her house

and at the top of your lungs, you yelled at the unmarried women where black bonnets in many groups signifying that they're trolling for single-hard dick. You screamed, you screamed dick. Just as you reached my truck to get her mail. All I could do was turn several shades of red and avoid eye contact.

I couldn't even apologize because I was choking on laughter and I just drove off an embarrassment. Since then I've learned to always use earbuds while listening to Time's Suck in Public. I've also spread the suck to my best friend Lauren. She's a cardiac nurse, her job is more intense in mind, so she listens on her off days. I love this so much. I just remember what this was.

This is so good. One day, while she was running errands, and I was working, I was listening to the secret suck. We had been communicating all morning through an app called Marco Polo. It's like FaceTime but it's not like, oh no I know all about Marco Polo. Lindsay has been obsessed with it for about a year. Her and her friends use Marco Polo like how the fuck do they have this much time to send each other messages it's insane. But yeah you record messages and then the person could listen them whenever. I find this more convenient than texting because I can just press record and talk with mail

on my hands, yeah, totally get it. So in the secret suck, you were talking about, I love that there's so much jerk off stuff. So in the secret suck, you were talking about some weird sex thing where ancient Egyptian pharaohs would jerk off into the Nile. I think that was actually true. And started ranting about what of American politicians

jerked off for ceremonies. I knew I couldn't do it just as recapping. I was literally in tears laughing. So I pressed play in the podcast and then started recording a polo for Lauren to hear it. Mind you, we've been sending polos all morning about normal stuff. She had no idea that I was going to send her a clip

of you ranting about politicians jerking off. So she's in Chipotle with a burrito in one hand and her phone in the other. She presses play in her polo and you're going on about how funny it would be to see people gathered around the president, jerking off to commemorate some serious thing. She starts fun with her phone, trying to turn it down,

but ends up turning it up to max volume. She said she literally ran out of the Chipotle crying with laughter, sent me a return message with what happened, and how thanks to you, she can never return to her favorite Bredon spot. Oh well, that's how we do it in Hollywood, showbiz. If you read this on Eric, can you please give Lauren a shout out?

She works so hard. She doesn't get the respect she deserves for saving lives as a cardiac nurse and I love her so much. I love this. She and I spent so many hours laughing about time suck and I know it would make her day. We planned to spread the suck together with some shenanigans. We have a friend who owns a van covered in stickers.

He takes it so seriously that he removed all the stickers, laminated and reapplied them so that they would last longer. I've ordered the Albert Fish sticker sheet and we plan on a hiding crunchy peanut butter stickers amongst the rest and waiting to see how long it takes him to realize it. He's going to be so mad we can't wait. We'll send you a picture if you want. Yeah, I do want my husband and I are coming to your standup show in Philly March 25th. Can't wait to see you. Hope you I do. I hope you had fun. Thanks for all you do in the bad magic team.

You mean much so much to us. You feel like family, give Penny Pooper and gingerbellis scratch for us. Good boy. Both jangles. Your loyal spacers Sarah C Sarah. I am so lucky to have awesome folks like you and Lauren enjoy my stupid bullshit. Bring me so much joy and I'll have so hard picture in the Chipotle debacle. Sorry, I didn't know about this message before Philly.

I hope you, it seems like you had fun. Happy to scratch the girls, love being a part of your family, good luck with the van, and then speaking of stickers. One last message and unusual one. Quick message from an anonymous employee of a local hamburger drive here in Cortalain called Zips. There's a Zips right down the street from the Suck Dungeon, and at least one person there, well at least two people actually are fucking sick of my bullshit. The employee writes, please don't put your stickers on our bathroom trash cans. Our boss yelled at us because it was on it. Now I've been scraping this thing off

for a good 30 minutes. And that's all they wrote. And I just wanna say thank you, Zip's employee. I can see how that is frustrating, but here's the thing. I didn't put it there. I can't control where our stickers go. And now because you said this message and because I'm reading it here, I feel like you've made yourself a target for more stickers. I feel like you've really laid down a challenge

to have your bathroom trash can completely fucking covered in stickers. And how about you tell your boss to calm the fuck down? It's a bathroom trash can in a burger drive through. There are far worse things already all over the surfaces of that room than stickers. Just let him be. It gives a little more personality. You know, maybe more stickers from other places will be added, some cool band stickers and stuff, and soon the bathroom will actually look fucking cool and distract from the smell of diarrhea and cheesy fries. So, can't help you. And uh, but we are going to do the sticker street team again this year and I look forward to doing that soon. Thanks everybody for sending in your messages. Thanks, time suckers. I need a net. We all did.

Thanks for listening to another Bad Magic Productions podcast. It's a scared-to-death time suck each week to secret suck each week for you space-lifters on Patreon. Please do not smash anyone's skull with a brick bath this week. Or bite their ear or nose off. Stop pretending you're in the Irish mob. It's over. Just keep on sucking. Hey guys, thanks for coming over to the Irish gang meeting. We got Greasy Liam here, we got Kiki Mulligan, we got one in McLaughlin, oh it's Gucci Riley, Lucky Charms Murphy, we got Brick Battle Doors, gonna see you,

Skims Patty, how you doing? We got Binky Sullivan, we got Toot Scoop Skelly, it's good to see you back out of the join my friend, Sprinkles or Walls, how you been? We got Fort Toot's McCarthy, Weezle Spunk Ryan, you look great, three nachos on Connor. Yeah, look at you, killer. We got Dinky O'Malley, cut your mouth,

fucking head off Nolan, and we got likes to play with Choo-Choo trains, Fitzpatrick. Let's get started.