• Additional Details
• Format: Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
• Rating: Not Rated
• Number of Discs: 1
• Run Time: 100 Minutes
• Region: Region 1
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Language: English
• Studio: History Channel
• DVD Release Date: March 27, 2007

This sweeping, in-depth account of America’s first organized crime dramatically depicts the mobster heritage behind the characters of the 2006 Oscar®-winning film The Departed.

• Before the Mafia, before Murder, Inc., before today’s melting-pot Gangstas, there were The Irish.
• Potato Famine refugees organized in the US first for their own protection, then for their own profit.
• Get to know infamous Irish gangland figures like Jack "Legs" Diamond, The Westies and James "Whitey" Bulger.

“No Irish Need Apply!” So read the placards and notices at every job-site, boarding-house and breadline in 1850’s America.

From the moment they arrived on American shores, fleeing the unimaginable privations of the Potato Famine, new Irish immigrants banded together for self-preservation. In a New World where the company you kept and the alley where you slept meant the difference between life and death, they discovered their only advantage lay in savage loyalty and an instinct for survival.

Masterfully crafted from contemporary accounts, dramatic filmed sequences and archival materials, the feature-length PADDY WHACKED provides deep and satisfying access into the Irish Mob. Trace the one hundred and fifty year legacy of the “National Scourge” that is deeply rooted in the diabolically powerful trinity of "Gangster, Politician and Lawman." Witness as their distinct style of "keep it small and keep it local" fueled their rise in the underworld, just as their "upper world" cohorts paved the way for brute capitalism.

Meet the most storied figures of Irish criminality, including the fearsome Westies, Legs Diamond, and Whitey Bulger, and learn of their associations with the likes of Boss Tweed, Jimmy Walker and Joseph Kennedy.

From the Coffin Ships to the White House, understanding the Irish experience in America is impossible without an account such as PADDY WHACKED: THE IRISH MOB.