The IFTA nominated Tg4 series Mobs Mheiriceá continues this week with Pat Nee’s journey from Rosmuc, Co Galway, to the top of the Boston mob.
The episode which will be showing this Thursday, October 23, at 10.15pm, tells the story of Pat Nee whose family emigrated from Rosmuc to begin a new life in south Boston, Massachusetts. Pat, now 65, gives an exclusive interview in which he recounts how he fell into a life of crime. For years he ran the Southie rackets alongside notorious on-the-run James ‘Whitey’ Bulger who is on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List.
After cutting his ties with ‘Whitey’, Pat then moved onto lucrative gun running for the IRA and in 1984 he made the headlines on both sides of the Atlantic when he put together the largest shipment of arms ever sent to the IRA from the US abroad the ill-fated Valhalla. The shipment resulted in the arrest and subsequent 10 year imprisonment of North Kerry Sinn Fein TD, Martin Ferris.
In his early years, Pat completed a six-year stint with the Marine Corps, and returned to Boston in 1966 and soon fell back into crime, later forming an alliance with ‘Whitey’. The TG4 series will focus on Pat’s own criminal activities which ended when he was sentenced to 37 years for his part in an attempted armed robbery in Abington Massachusetts, in January 1990. He was released in 1998 after serving eight years. Pat now works as a construction labourer but admits he misses the rush of the old days and the chance to take care of ‘Whitey’.
Episode six is the final chapter in the story of the Irish Mob in America and deals with ‘Whitey’ Bulger himself. He managed to rule Boston for over 20 years through ruthless violence and his ability to corrupt both politicians and lawmen. He is still at large today with a reward of $1,000,000 on his head.
Mobs Mheiriceá is produced by Eileen Seoighe and Brid Seoighe of Abú Media and Directed by Dathaí Keane.
