Customer Reviews

A Criminal and an Irishman: The Inside Story of the Boston Mob-IRA Connection

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

South Boston circa 1950-1985 is one of the hottest subjects to flood the new non-fiction book releases market at this moment. Titles such as popular columnist/talk show host Howie Carr's "The Brothers Bulger," Kevin Weeks's "Brutal," and John "Red" Shea's "Rat Bastards" all share display space with Patrick Nee's narrative of life as a prominent gangster in the renowned peninsula area of New England's hub city. "A Criminal and an Irishman," Nee's account of that lifestyle, is the best of the lot.

Co-author Richard Farrell brings Nee's story to life in a formidable manner, resulting in a book that transcends the usual true crime format and offers readers profound insights about the environment of South Boston during that era, and how and why Irish nationalism played such a pivotal role to many of its residents, Irish-born Patrick Nee chief among them. Farrell is an astonishing wordsmith who crafts an intelligent and extraordinarily perceptive narrative based on Nee's intuitive account of events and characters that shaped his life in "Southie."

Most notably, "A Criminal and an Irishman" presents non-South Boston residents with an accessible portrait in words of what that area was like to live in during the period addressed in the book, and brings it home to the reader in a way that makes the nature of its landscape and culture fully graspable. You feel as if you are there in South Boston during the decades in question. None of the other writers of books devoted to South Boston-related crime (including the masterful Howie Carr and the excellent Boston Globe reporters Gerard O'Neill and Dick Lehr) have captured South Boston's essence as Patrick Nee has through Rich Farrell's exceptional research and craftsmanship in weaving words. It is both history (American and Irish) and a very compelling story at once.

This is Nee's account of events as they transpired-not the FBI's, the newspapers, or anybody else's. Co-authors Rich Farrell and Michael Blythe used no confidential informant sources or existing news archives in the book's narrative. It is first and foremost Patrick Nee's story. And his version of events diverge radically from those conventionally accepted, markedly so in two instances-who really assassinated long-time South Boston gang leader Donnie Killeen, and the inter-web of complexities involved regarding the South Boston Irish gang wars of the early 1970s. Nee gives readers new perspectives to consider, and they are all highly plausible.

Patrick Nee is portrayed as a person who possesses an extraordinarily strong belief system-core values that are enduring. Nee's values, as conveyed in this book, shaped his behavior in every way. It causes him to be family-oriented, altruistic, and even spiritual, together with his choices to engage in criminal activity. Whereas Nee is a complex person, his beliefs make him dependable (you know where he stands) and easy to trust. They also produced conflict. Nee's core values are unchanging and have put him in discord with people who opposed or didn't value them. It also placed inner demands on Nee to find work that meshed with those values, work that was meaningful to him and that mattered. He found this, until recently, in criminal pursuits. It produced the motivation for him to work hard, excel, and achieve consistent with his values and beliefs. This is a dominant theme throughout the book, and truly resonates in the chapters devoted to Nee's efforts to assist the IRA in attaining weapons and ordinance to achieve their goals. Whether or not readers agree with the issues at hand, they can appreciate and understand Nee's resolve in resorting to the activities involved and his iron-clad commitment to the causes he believes.

This book is a remarkable achievement in both style (written) and substance (historical accuracy). The reader comes away from this well-crafted story with both a keener sense of its related history and a different outlook on the collective characters that comprise recent gang and racketeering activity in South Boston. I highly recommend it.

You don't have to approve of the lifestyle choices of this thug to enjoy what is a great story. This is not really a morality tale per se although from the writer's warped perspective there is the redeeming aspect of the the whole in that Nee's passion was supporting the IRA terrorists by buying and shipping a huge magnitude of firearms for the "soldiers" to use to fight for their freedom. ( Great pains are taken to keep the arms dry so they are outfitted with plastic bags that the IRA soldiers store in the bogs ) A million dollars worth are shipped "free of charge" by the Boston irish patriots-I won't spoil all the fun for you readers. Whitey is only a supporting player in this particular shenanigans , but he does get artfully dissed which is a small pleasure... The bottom line is that all that honor and bravery aside,

there was no small amount of criminal shake downs, thefts, and all sorts of nefarious doings that supported the criminals self and family , but then again- he never said he was a "good guy" !

Wow. This book was so captivating. Nee uses his talent as a refreshing to see that Nee wasn't one of those criminals that thinks he is the toughest thing to walk. (Unlike most authors to write about their gang related lives.)

Nee was not more a criminal than an Irishman or a Southie gang member. He is an Irishman in blood, a Southie gang member by associations, and a criminal by occupation. The title suggests that he uses his criminal side to help in the aid of his fellow Irishman. And I think the book portrays that idea thoroughly. It does not just delve into one aspect of his life. He goes through his time as a boy growing up in Ireland and then to a criminal (seeking revenge for his brother's murder, robbing trucks, etc). The Southie gang member title, just connects all these theories.

Southie is, traditionally, a completely Irish town. This connects Nee's Irish heritage to his Southie gang member title. Nee, Blythe and Farrell include this information in the book when you see Nee move from Ireland to Southie. Nee becomes friends with a group of kids his age, and thus his days as a gang member begin. Though the book focuses a lot on Nee's Southie life and the gang war between Whitey Bulger and himself, I think the main emphasis is how Nee tied all aspects of what he was into helping the IRA, who was in serious need of help.

Not many American's knew exactly what was going on in Ireland, not even many Irish-Americans. What people knew was heard over the news or radios. Nee's book sheds a new light on what was really happening. And how, though his aid did not solve everything, it was help needed. To say this book doesn't focus on the 'Irishman' in this book, is to be completely incorrect and just to have proved, you did not read the book. The chapters of Nee growing up in Southie, fighting Whitey, allying himself with Whitey, was all preparation for his task in heling the IRA.

So, in short, this book was an eye opener in so many ways. It's not a book about Nee vs. Bulger, or about Bulger's doings and inner gang workings, those books are everywhere and not very reliable. Of course, some guy is going to boast about how he was Whitey's right hand man, and over came the obstacles when Whitey ratted everyone out. They'll be a hero to people who don't know the true story. Nee's book is not to boast his ego, or roll around in money. The book is to let people know about Nee's life, what happened in it, and how he came back from it. Nee doesn't brag, he tells it how it is. I loved this book, and everything about it.

I absolutely loved this book. Richard Farrell captured the essence of Patrick Nee and put the words to paper beautifully. I read the book in three days, I couldn't put it down. It has already been stolen from me by my mother! Kudos' to a job well done.

This is the best book in its class. Nee is everything that Mac, Weeks, Shea aren't. He is truthful and honest. Nee's story puts it all into perspective and negates all the other fiction. Nee's story is the one that you want to hear about. Recounting the events of his life, that he remembers. The South Boston gang war chapter is outstanding, and the valhalla chapter is almost a "how to smuggle" for those of you interested. Nee's story is both moving and compelling, with his sentiment towards his brother and his belief in the IRA as opressed people. Nee's image of Whitey Bulger is outstanding. This is a definite good read. buy it.

This is a solidly wriiten book on criminal activity in Boston and arms smuggling to Ireland. The author pulls no punches about what he did and offers no apologies to the lifestyle he choose. You can either love or hate him but he seems to be a respectable guy from this book. The co-authors do a pretty good job putting his voice into a readable manner.

Well, let's see....I bought this book in the hopes of learning about some type of connection with the P.I.R.A and the Southie Irish "mob". First, I had to get through the first ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY FIVE PAGES which had to do with Mr. Nee's life prior to his involvement.

If you couple that with the forty or so pages that dealt with the actual boat trip, which Mr. Nee wasn't even privy to, then you have about TWENTY pages actually dealing with the topic of "The Inside Story of the Boston Mob-IRA Connection".

Listen, Mr. Nee, I understand you not wanting to tell the "whole" story about what you did as I'm sure the statute of limitations hasn't run out. But don't spout off about some huge connection between the Irish "mob" and the P.I.R.A if you don't have much to say. You wrote more about Jimmy Bulger than you did about anything else!

The only saving grace of the book was that you felt like you were bellied up to the bar in some run down gin mill swapping stories with ole' Patty himself. It's an easy read, completed it in a night, but only pick it up if you're interested in one-sided war stories about criminals who victimized Southie.

Nee's true-crime novel about his days running with Southie's Irish Mob and working with rogue IRA members is pretty intriguing. His descriptions of Ireland and secret meetings with the IRA and other Boston hoods (most notably, none other than Whitey Bulger, of course) were well written. Nee, a retired Southie hood and die-hard Irish nationalist, wrote a fairly decent book here but will not appeal to all gangster fans. I surely enjoyed it but plenty of other books on the Boston Irish Mob that overshadows this.

3 stars.

I found this book to be boring, Pat Nee is a self serving person. It does not depict the real South Boston or the things that took place. Everything he wrote about from his experiences in the service to his dealings with Whitey Bulger were always an almost succeeded. It sounds like he was always riding some ones coat tails, even the documentary Bullets over Boston he came off as just a punk. I don't reccomend this book. If you want to learn about the true story I recommend Black Mass or The Brothers Bulger.

A Criminal and an Irishman is a terrific read, particularly for anyone interested in American connections to the defiance of British rule and oppression in Northern Ireland. Highly informative and entertaining, the novel also provides a great deal of excitement in its recounting of its anti-hero's adventures as a criminal and a gun runner for Irish freedom fighters. Pleasantly, it avoids glorifying crime, yet it does provide insight into why Pat Nee made the choices he did, as both a criminal and an Irishman. Further, it provides facts too often ignored in the US press about Britain's continuing atrocities against Nationalists and Catholics in Northern Ireland. Anyone who wants to know the truth about what goes on in that enemy-occupied country would do well to read this book.