Is there such a thing as Irish omertà ? The insistence that there is a code of honor for an Irish-American hoodlum that would stop him from ever becoming an F.B.I. informer is the most intriguing part of the criminal defense being offered by James (Whitey) Bulger in his trial in Boston. Mr. Bulger stands accused of a raft of violent crimes from his years as an underworld boss, including involvement in 19 murders. Yet it is the prosecution's spelling out his role as an alleged informer who turned on his own kind in South Boston that seems most stinging for him — to the point of his snarling expletives at people who say so on the witness stand.
"The worst thing that an Irish person could consider doing was becoming an informant because of the history of the Troubles in Ireland," Mr. Bulger's lead lawyer, J. W. Carney Jr., gravely maintained before the jury.
Actually, anyone who has ever paid attention to the long history of the Troubles can find informers appearing regularly as raisins in Irish soda bread. In modern times, British and Northern Irish authorities recruited dozens of informants to provide intelligence on their own people and testify against suspects in cases of sectarian violence. They were dubbed "supergrasses" in the streets in an adaptation of British slang. Scores of convictions were obtained at jury-less trials, many of them flimsy enough to be subsequently overturned. Supergrasses were marked men when their identities leaked out.
Mr. Bulger's concern for his reputation in South Boston shows he would have the jury perceive him as a Celtic godfather who could never rat out his own people. His passion in the courtroom recalls Gypo Nolan, the antihero of Liam O'Flaherty's classic novel "The Informer," set in the treacherous days of the early Troubles. "Isn't there a man here who can tell me why I did it?" Gypo sorrowfully asks in the film version when his skulduggery is found out.
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