A Criminal and an Irishman

January 23, 2006
Nee served 18 months for planning the largest shipment of arms from America to the IRA in 1984. He was also an associate of the notorious mobster Whitey Bulger in South Boston. But Nee's insider account of his career as a thug and an IRA gunrunner proves less interesting than one might expect. The details of his youth and teenage descent into gang membership will sound familiar to most readers. And while Nee attempts to present himself as a genuine Irish patriot, saying others merely pay lip service to the cause of the IRA, those claims are less than convincing, given, among other things, his declaration that "o this day, I'm not sure what was the deciding factor for me in linking our underworld activities with the IRA's cause. Maybe I was bored with Whitey." In the end, there is too little in this account (written with the help of journalist Farrell and screenwriter Blythe) to keep the attention of any but the most die-hard true crime buff.