Paddy Whacked: The Untold Story of the Irish American Gangster
by Harper Paperbacks

	Paddy Whacked: The Untold Story of the Irish American Gangster
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Book Description

<p>Here is the shocking true saga of the Irish American mob. In <i>Paddy Whacked</i>, bestselling author and organized crime expert T. J. English brings to life nearly two centuries of Irish American gangsterism, which spawned such unforgettable characters as Mike "King Mike" McDonald, Chicago's subterranean godfather; Big Bill Dwyer, New York's most notorious rumrunner during Prohibition; Mickey Featherstone, troubled Vietnam vet turned Westies gang leader; and James "Whitey" Bulger, the ruthless and untouchable Southie legend. Stretching from the earliest New York and New Orleans street wars through decades of bootlegging scams, union strikes, gang wars, and FBI investigations, <i>Paddy Whacked</i> is a riveting tour de force that restores the Irish American gangster to his rightful preeminent place in our criminal history -- and penetrates to the heart of the American experience.</p>

Reader Reviews

While a pioneering effort on the fascinating topic of Irish-American organized crime, I was somewhat disappointed with Paddy Whacked, considering the acclaim this book has received. The general background of Irish gangsters and the problems faced by Irish immigrants seem very well researched but the effort falls way short when you get down to specifics. Bugs Moran (born Adelard Cunin) was not actually Irish but the son of French-Canadian immigrants and his North Side mob, composed of mostly Germans and Poles, could hardly be considered an Irish gang. The century-long rivalry betwen Irish and Italian gangsters appears overblown here, as an almost continuous conspiratorial intrigue rather than the simple melting pot dynamics of gradually assimilating successive immigrant cultures. Where is the evidence for Owney Madden (English-born but of Irish ancestry) being forced by the emerging Italian-Jewish syndicate to turn on his Irish brethren? The supposed alliance of Vincent "Mad Dog" Coll and Jack "Legs" Diamond probably owes more to newspaper speculation than anything else and English's theory that it constituted a possible Irish combine to challenge the Mafia falls flat when one realizes that most of Coll's gang were Italians and that Diamond's mob was also ethnically mixed. And it's really a stretch connecting Joe Kennedy's early bootlegging involvement to the JFK assassination which may or may not have been a Mob hit. I also have problems with the fictional dialogue sometimes employed in this book. Paddy Whacked is an ambitious effort but still leaves a lot to be desired and falls far short of being the definitive study of Irish-American organized crime.