New book examines Montreal's Irish mobsters

- Montreal's Irish Mob wasn't always as flamboyant as some of its Italian and French-Canadian contemporaries but a new book says they were the go-to guys when you wanted to knock over a bank or crack a safe.

They earned the grudging respect not only of their fellow criminals but also of the cops who hunted them, says D'Arcy O'Connor, author of "Montreal's Irish Mafia: The True Story of the Infamous West End Gang."

"The West End Gang planned things out," O'Connor said in an interview about the book, which was released Monday. "They didn't run into a bank and start shooting people right away. They kind of planned their heists very carefully.

"They're considered by a lot of the cops, the old cops, as being more particular in the types of crimes they pulled and certainly better at planning crimes."

Andre Bouchard, the colourful former head of the Montreal police major crimes squad, is quoted in the book as saying he never saw the West End Gang, as the Irish Mob was tagged, brazenly causing trouble on the streets when he was in uniform in the 1970s.
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