Since Kindle bestselling historical novel Divide the Dawn has come out, which features the White Hand Gang, there has been rising interest in the 1910s ruffian brawlers and brutal gals that wreaked havoc in Brooklyn’s industrial waterfront era. The White Hand Gang was a real, Irish-American street and dock gang composed of wild teens andContinue reading “The Irish White Hand Gang”
Tag Archives: Irish gangster
Finding Brooklyn’s Irishtown
I was at first made aware of an “Irishtown” in Brooklyn by an elder through word of mouth, which of course is the ancient form of Irish storytelling. My grandmother, who was born in Brooklyn in 1917, first made mention in passing when telling of stories from her childhood in the humble tenement neighborhoods. BecauseContinue reading “Finding Brooklyn’s Irishtown”
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Frankie Yale – Divide the Dawn
Frankie Yale is a minor character in the historical novel Divide the Dawn (Fall, 2019). As are most of the characters in the book, he is based on a real, historical person: The Brooklyn, Italian Mafia “Capo.” Francesco Ioele moved from Italy to Southern Brooklyn in 1901 as an eight-year old and quickly became known as aContinue reading “Frankie Yale – Divide the Dawn”
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What’s a Diddicoy?
What once are derogatory, offensive terms often change in time. “Irish” was once a terrible and oppressive thing to be called. In the ports of New York, Boston and New Orleans and in the Pennsylvania mines, the Appalachian mountains and anywhere else in the United States after the the Great Hunger, to be named such aContinue reading “What’s a Diddicoy?”
