Montreal's Irish Mafia by D'Arcy O'Connor & Miranda O'Connor

Author:D'Arcy O'Connor & Miranda O'Connor [O'Connor, D'Arcy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781443427388
Publisher: HarperCollins Canada
Published: 2013-08-26T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

The King of Coke

If anyone can be dubbed the Godfather of Montreal's so-called Irish mafia during its heyday of the 1970s and '80s, that person is Frank Peter Ryan, a charismatic and affable Irishman who commanded the allegiance and respect of dozens of his cohorts, most of whom were anglophone Irish who, like Ryan, grew up in working-class neighborhoods in the city's downtown and southwestern enclaves.

Ryan, an only child, was born on June 10, 1942, and raised by his devout Catholic mother, May, on Milton Street in Montreal's “McGill Ghetto” after his alcoholic father, Frank Sr., abandoned them in 1945. His mother referred to him as (Frank) “Junior,” which as a toddler he mispronounced “Dunie.” It stuck and would become his nickname for life.

Intelligent, yet bored with school, Dunie dropped out at the age of sixteen, and formed a local street gang which engaged in relatively minor crimes such as break and enters, shoplifting, and thefts from transport trucks, often on the bustling St. Lawrence Boulevard (aka “the Main”), just around the corner from his home. He was arrested several times, usually for being in possession of stolen goods, and by the age of twenty-one had accumulated two years off-and-on in juvenile detention centers and the St. Vincent de Paul Penitentiary.

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