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Whitey Bulger a regular in Irish bar in Santa Monica?

Local Boston Irish implants say it was very likely

PATRICK O'SHEA,

IrishCentral.com Staff Writer

Published Monday, June 27, 2011, 7:30 AM

Updated Monday, June 27, 2011, 9:50 AM

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FBI James 'Whitey' Bulger's old mugshots

Patrons of Sonny McClean’s Irish Bar in Santa Monica are convinced that America’s Most Wanted man Whitey Bulger was a regular there.

The bar is a shrine to Boston Irish sports and is visited by all Boston ex-pats who live in the Los Angles area. Whitey was just a few miles away in his apartment when he was arrested for his suspected role in 19 murders

The Wall Street Journal described the bar as being“dimly lit with Red Sox and Patriots banners on its walls and framed photos of Larry Bird and Tom Brady hanging over its green upholstered booths.“

Last week, the pub was playing and replaying ’The Departed,’ the Boston-Irish mob movie where Jack Nicholson's character is based on Whitey Bulger himself.

In the men’s bathroom graffiti announced: "Whitey wuz here."

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"He had to have come in here for the clam bellies"—a New England specialty, Joanie O'Hara Schecter, the bar's co-owner, told the WSJ . "We're the only place in L.A. that has them."

Boston Irish are showing up outside Whitey’s old apartment, too. Some wore shirts that read "Southie"; another read, "Harvard."

Writer and Boston native Michael Patrick MacDonald showed up for Whitey’s hearing. "I don't know why I came. I just had to," Mr. MacDonald said. "I was remembering all the mothers who lost their kids in that neighborhood."

Inside Sonny’s, Boston writer Dennis Lehane simply said, "I'm glad they got him."

Bartender "Big" Tom Nicholson felt a little differently. He expressed, "I'm almost sad he got caught...he was a legend in Boston. He comes from a time and a place that doesn't exist anymore in Boston…he reminds everyone of the old days, for better or for worse."

Nster.com

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9 Comments

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Brolaur | Jul 30, 2011, 01:48 PM EDT

So does Hitler, Cromwell, Mussolini, Stalin.Grow up Big Tom.

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oaklongan | Jun 28, 2011, 05:07 AM EDT

An Irish anti-defamation league...better late THAN NEVER.

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Pittsburghkid | Jun 27, 2011, 06:41 PM EDT

Irish mobsters generally never get into the news and retire rich. Case in point Owen Madden, New York mobster, and a friend of the Rooney family. He retired in live in Hot Spring Ark. Art Rooney ran a gambling boat on the Allegheny River. According to a bio about Art Sr., he never had henchmen, or enforcers. Art Sr. said, the Mobsters from New Kensington PA tried to muscle in on his Gambling Boat. The mobster were arrested by the Pittsburgh Police. Art Rooney's son is Ambassador to Ireland. Then there is the Kennedy/Fizgerald klan.

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Chiefjustice | Jun 27, 2011, 05:42 PM EDT

What a waist of time and space. Just take him out back and shoot him ... Who gives a fat fiddlers F--t

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bunkerhill | Jun 27, 2011, 03:55 PM EDT

Whitey Bulger was the top story on US TV, the very top story in a world full of conflict of an Irish-American Mobster in a country full of ethnic mobsters. John Gotti laughed on a TV show about his family about how many people the mafia killed. It was all a wink and a laugh. His sister had a TV show. Bugsy Siegel, the Jewish mobster, has had so many movies made about him, lauding him as the founder of Las Vegas. And has anyone forgotten Tony Soprano? The Italian mafia was colorful, the Jewish mob were entrepreneurs but the Irish mob are the most evil of all. Every TV show showed their coming from a low class ghetto. Did anyone mention that Whitey's brother was the Dean of the University of Massachusetts and was continually harassed until he finally resigned. Did anyone mention that Whitey's other brother was a priest? Whitey, coming from a family that produced such success, clearly had a brain disease as does any mobster whether Irish, Italian or Jewish. However I am concerned about how differently the varying ethnic mobsters are handled. My wife and I say thank God for the Irish-Americans who are forming the anti-defamation league. If any group needed an anti-defamation group, it is truly the Irish.

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AengusOg | Jun 27, 2011, 10:35 AM EDT

With all his baggage, incl. FBI connections, it is a wonder he Bulger was brought in alive. It sounds as if he were begging to be caught, or thought he had a solid with the Devil(s) and could go about with impunity, or is it immunity. He should have learned from the Bin Laden execution. Dead men don't talk so he had better get it all down before he has a coronary, or Jack O'Ruby shoots him.

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MayotoMidtown | Jun 27, 2011, 10:04 AM EDT

Boston implants? Were they spot-welded to the bar stools? Guess I wouldn't be surprised. I'm glad to hear Michael Patrick MacDonald weigh in. I hope he continues to speak up about the real Bulger legacy in Southie amongst all this revisionist "folk-hero" nonsense.

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Billcarson | Jun 27, 2011, 08:34 AM EDT

A 'Manchurian Candidate' is an unwitting assassin brainwashed and programmed to kill. Did the CIA create the 'Manchurian Candidate' with highly secret program of experiments in mind control on Whitey Bulger? He spent a few years in Alcatraz, volunteered to take LSD in government-run experiments to shorten his sentence, and returned to Boston after an early parole in March 1965. Project MKULTRA, or MK-ULTRA, was the code name for a covert, illegal CIA human research program, run by the CIA's Office of Scientific Intelligence. This official US government program at least through the late 1960s, and it used Whitey Bulger as one of the test subjects. James “Whitey'' Bulger, the notorious South Boston mobster faces charges in at least 19 deaths. Did the CIA create the 'Manchurian Candidate'??? He hit the Massachusetts lottery in 1991 for 14 million .He got paid over twenty years until 2011 .Nice twenty years beach vacation . Then a lady from Iceland iced him ?

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OleSarge | Jun 27, 2011, 08:19 AM EDT

“Whitey” Bulger is a black mark against all hard working Irish Americans. He mastered the art of crime, corruption and dealt death and destruction. He is accused of killing 19; no one will know how many more deaths his actions caused. Families torn apart, lives ruined, young people turned to crime. All for what; all to give Bulger a sense of power, and to put money in his pocket. Don’t grieve for Whitey, grieve for the lives he ruined and the dreams he crushed.

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