Moriarty The Life and Times of a Criminal Genius

by Michael Charton

  In Cobh, we paid a few pence and got on a ship that would take us right to the devil's lair. We hoped with so many Irish in London, no one would trace trouble in rural Ireland to the bowels of the capital of the most evil and rapacious empire ever.

  I don't remember the name of the ship. I was probably too tired and stunned to care, but I remember its horror. We were crammed onto the deck with the livestock being better treated than the passengers are. The seas were rough and we had to cling to each other to prevent being swept overboard. This is not being melodramatic. There were cries through the night as several people were swept into the dark night into a sea we feared to look at. We spent that horrible night without sleep and arrived in London drenched, cold, tired and hungry.

  • Chapter Four

  • Our Arrival in the Devils Backyard

  '

  Well here we were in the London East End Docks. My cold face betrayed the fear I felt. I did find my hardness, and trusting no one worked to my advantage. Many an immigrant was taken advantage of and robbed of what little they had left by thieves and con men waiting at the docks. The idlers on the wharf called out to the other immigrants, but not us. Sean, Cathal and I must have been a mean looking threesome, because no one bothered us. Mother was worn, but had her hard expression on. She glanced over at Westminster in the distance. "So that is where the main body of evil lurks."

  We walked away from the docks through filthy streets full of poverty and vice. We had never seen this many people in one place. In the shape we were in, we did not stand out and we heard enough Irish accents to know we would not sound strange where we were at the moment. God was with us, and we immediately found a Catholic church, an important first stop. The church was called St. Brendan's.

  The last thing I desired was asking for help and looking vulnerable to anyone who would rob and take advantage of us. That is why we thought God had guided us there. At St. Brendan's, kindly Father O'Malley was accustomed to dealing with new Irish immigrants arriving in London. Mother was lucky. Father O'Malley had work for her taking care of the church. He found us cheap lodging nearby.

  I was also lucky that Father O'Malley thought I was intelligent and brought me around to some Franciscan monks who taught me advanced subjects. I especially excelled at mathematics.. They soon had me working with other students. Unlike many Irish priests who avoided Irish independence, they told me about Ireland's heroes. They were already grooming me to be more than I thought I could be. I discovered I had a distant cousin who was a priest in London, David Moriarty. Father O'Malley introduced us. My mother said father mentioned he had a distant cousin who was a priest, but the cousin always put on airs.

  Father O'Malley had contacted our cousin and had him come to St. Brendan's Rectory.

  Apparently Father O'Malley had not told my cousin why he was having him over. It sounded like a social call for my cousin said, "Matthew, we do not see eye to eye on much. Why did you have me come over? Who are these people?"

  "David, these are your relatives from Ireland. They need our help."

  Cousin David was a handsome man who looked down at us and immediately made assumptions about us he had no right to make or comment on. "Oh, the spawn from my smuggler cousin are they? I'll not help these vermin. Why have you come to London? I will not want anything to do with you!"

  Father O'Malley was furious. "David, where is your Christian charity? Good God, man this is your family. Your blood family, not just your human family."

  "Matthew, these people are criminals. The fact that they are my family grieves me. The fact that they are here in London grieves me even more. I am prone to believe they support Fenian criminals. He roughly shoved my head up with his right hand. "The apple does not fall from the tree, I'll wager. Spawn of scum, I say, along with those two young hooligans with you. I'll be watching you. You will regret coming to London and not heading for Boston like other scum."

  Amazingly, Mother held her temper. Apparently, she felt Father O'Malley was standing up for us just fine. Cousin David stormed out without so much as a by your leave or a good day.

  Father O'Malley was sad. "Oh, Mrs. Moriarty, I am so sorry you were treated this way by your own."

  "Never you mind, you have been good to us. We will make it!" Mother snapped.

  Cousin David did not really care about the people he was supposed to be serving. He was a politician first and wanted to be the smart-looking churchman.

  Don't worry about Cousin David, for He got his. Later in my tale, I will mention my final meeting with him. All of his political moves and skills and his arrogance would do him no good in the end. His road after all his maneuvers will be hit a dead end.

  • Chapter Five

  • Starting With Nothing

  We had to become accustomed to our new surroundings. We had been around dirt and poverty before, but never this much. Anyone who didn't become accustomed to the cesspool called Whitechapel quickly was swallowed and destroyed by it. Above the terrible housing in the neighborhood, we could see the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral and Westminster Abbey. Those buildings and the Houses of Parliament were like unpleasant apparitions that never went away. The power of Empire for us was always in the distance. We knew it ruled us, but we were not, nor would we ever be, a part of it.

  In our free time, my mates and I took to wandering the streets of Whitechapel. These wanderings were not aimless; they were to learn my new environment.

  It was and is a cruel place. People slept on the streets. Doss houses for a couple of pence a night provided a filthy bed. Many of the local women were consumed by and consuming drink and had to become prostitutes for food and to feed their drinking habits. I ran into them all the time coming out of pubs where they met their clients. I knew several prostitutes. I felt sorry for them, wanted to protect them and thought of them as a potential source of income for me. There were robberies and murders all the time. All of this occurred within a short distance of the Tower and the City of London, the nerve center of this empire.

  Sean, Cathal and I would work occasionally as porters near the docks. We observed what went on. We were also observant in the City, watching the wealthy men in their tops hats and long coats. We could dress like them with a little luck. We would never be them.

  One day when we had only been in London two weeks, the three of us were walking down Whitechapel Road. A big hard lad came up to us.

  "Oi, now 'and over your money quiet like," he said in the local Cockney accent. Oh dear, I thought, my first hostile contact with the dreaded English. I pretended to go to my pocket to comply, but whipped out my right fist and punched him in his groin. He fell down on the pavement yelling, and his mates came out of doorways. It was five against three. That didn't bother us, we had been fighting odds all along. We fought out of sheer rage and won.

  The big lad rolling on the ground started to recover. He asked me my name. Seamus I replied.

  "At least you are Irish," he replied. "I'm Liam. Those are me mates." From this core of roughs, I built my empire. Among us -- Sean, Cathal and my new mates, we were going to build something, the likes of which the British Empire had never seen and would live to regret.

  • Chapter Six

  • building my first gang

  The East End of London was full of gangs and criminals. My new friends realized how tough I was and that I could handle myself. They also admired my intelligence. I showed them we could become well off and use the threat of muscle, but not always have to make good with that muscle. I was to build my reputation in the neighborhood with skill. Everyone also needed to know I was not a big lad, but could handle myself if need be and was now winning over more and more local lads. I didn't have to be arrogant or overbearing with my intelligence. Just use it and let them see it.

  I would deliberately be the first one stealing from a cart. The first day I did it, my mates were stunned. Without as much as a by your leave, I robbed an unattended cart near the East India Docks with what I could carry. My mates then
took my lead and helped themselves.

  My mathematical skills were a great benefit. I took to traveling to other parts of the city. I came by a chessboard and pieces in a flea market. The costermonger gave it to me, for a farthing. With this board and pieces, I started hustling games sixpence a match. I won virtually all the time. Then one day I was watching a dice game in the street. I didn't play; I just watched. I realized something. Chess would be too hard to teach enough people to make it profitable. I could run dice games and card games, though. I had learned to figure out the odds. My natural talents for mathematics came in handy in games of chance. You see, I realized that the suckers play, and the people in the know run the game.

  My gang would act as touts to get players and protection. They would act as another player and win hands to make it look fair. Of course, gamblers did win. That is why it is called gambling. By running the game, I was the one making money most of the time. I also had a loan-sharking operation that started by loaning money to gamblers. Later, I helped people open pawnshops and took part of the profit. The pawnshop owner also acted as my fences for stolen goods. I learned how to franchise when I discovered the autobiography of the famous American patriot Benjamin Franklin in an old bookstore. The clerk sold it to me for pennies, but was still suspicious of how an Irish boy could read and have the money for the book. More fool he. Little did he know. Anyway, I brought the book home and read about how Benjamin Franklin franchised his printing business.

  I developed some other rackets as well. One was to have young boys walk through the city. They would walk beside a gentleman and talk to him. An adult would then step in front of them and demand, "What are you doing with my son?" Sometimes, it was the boy's father himself, sometimes another man from the neighborhood who knew him. A ruckus would start; the insinuation being the gentleman wanted the boy for immoral purposes. A guinea would be demanded for silence and the boy and man would take off. I had protection rackets for market stalls all over. They were especially vulnerable if they were selling stolen merchandise. They could hardly go to the coppers. If they did not pay us either in merchandise or cash, we would beat them and wreck their stalls. Another racket was based on working as a porter. We would steal from the docks and sell it in the neighborhoods. We would get jobs for people in the neighborhood on the docks. Shippers understood insurance would have to cover losses. Dockworkers just made sure part of a shipment would mysteriously "disappear." As long as dock bosses got a cut, all were happy, at least in Whitechapel. The stolen goods were sold in certain pubs so the coppers would not see. Some things we might give to a desperate family. It makes them loyal in the end. I made working people understand they did have certain power over the "gentlemen" in the city. Some of London's hansom cabs were controlled by me. Now, I had no horses, so how was this possible? After a short while, we were earning enough money to invest in such things and of course in the people. I got them in business and they paid me part of the profit. Cabbies also acted as lookouts for my burglars to rob certain houses. Well-to-do people taking rival carriages suddenly found themselves robbed by a fast hand through an open window. Alternatively, an "obliging" lad would see such a carriage stop, offer to "help", then help himself to what he could steal by slight of hand.

  We recruited people into gangs who haunted the great railroad terminals. People getting on and off the trains were distracted and easy to rob. We sometimes stole entire suitcases and brought them back to Whitechapel. We also robbed gentlemen face to face, especially if they were drunk. If the gentlemen resisted, well we knocked them out and went through their pockets. The more we did this, the more courageous it made us. We controlled prostitution by protecting the whores in exchange for part of their earnings

  It is said the prisons acted as "schools" for criminals and made them better criminals. That may be for those who were not part of an organization, such as the one I was building. I had no intention of letting those who were captured give up the organization for a break. Anyone working for us was warned repeatedly of the consequences of being caught. Let me just say it was not pretty.

  You see, I also learned to understand people. Later on, Dr. Freud trying to explain how people are. My education was the education from the holy fathers and the street. I learned to understand people through observations, not their dreams and fantasies. My boys, for example, were mostly interested in a few pints and some grub. In other words, I paid them what they were worth. They stuck with me, because they earned more than they could anywhere else. You may be wondering how a good Catholic could do all this. The crimes of vice were going to be there no matter what. I just took advantage of it. The Catholic Church has confession and I always went. I am a Catholic and a human being, so I am a sinner.

  Many Irish who had survived the famine were suffering more than just physically. Some

  were becoming apathetic and obsessed with food for obvious reasons. Because of this, most people who now worked for me were happy just to make enough money to eat and have a few simple pleasures. Working to get revenge for Ireland was not on the minds of many yet. Blows would have to be struck through feeding them first.

  I also made sure some money went into the church poor box, and Father O'Malley would tell me about other recent immigrants whom I could help. You see, I could help them and in turn find out what their desires and weaknesses were and have many of them work for me.

  Father O'Malley and I spoke frequently about Ireland's tragedies and difficulties. Much of the official church position was not to support Irish fighters. Many priests, however, turned a blind eye to this. Father Feeney, our parish priest in Ireland, and Father O'Malley were two such priests.

  I was introduced to the underground group, the Molly Maguires. I will speak more about how I helped the American version. In Ireland, they attacked people who attacked the native Irish. They fought for tenants' rights against the rapacious landlords. It was felt in some quarters my skills as a fighter and organizer would come in handy. While I was a lad still in my teens, they would sneak me back into Ireland. I only wish I had been in contact with them when I was still in Ireland. Joining my County Kerry gang were a group of Donegal boys led by one Brian McLaughlin. He and his gang were tough, resolute, and slow to forget grudges. They helped provide more brawn for my schemes. I found the McLaughlin boys could be stirred up by by reminding them about Irish abuses. I gave them a reason to justify their criminal actions. They were like dogs with a bone. Once they grabbed, they did not let go. In Ireland, we started leaving many an Anglo-Irish landowner dead in an isolated place. We looked just like the locals and melted into the countryside. The redcoats had no bloody idea who to look for. They just knew it was a sinister organization they were dealing with.

  The McLaughlin boys got even for me back in Kerry. No one knew them there, and Ireland had people moving from all over because of the famine. Remember Donal? He was living a nice life because of Lord Fitzmaurice. Well, Donal was not under Lord Fitzmaurice's roof. The McLaughlins got my revenge for me. They went into his home and killed him in front of his mother by stabbing him as Caesar was stabbed. Brian told me he said to her "This is what happens when you bear traitors into the world." Of course Donal's mother had no idea who the McLaughlins were. She figured I was behind it. She was screaming "Those bloody Moriartys. I hate them and those they know!" Of course, the McLaughlin's fled into the countryside. The Mollys took care of their hiding and movement back to London.

  Lord Fitzmaurice's turn then came. One of his supposedly loyal staff, a footman, had become a Molly. He smothered Lord Fitzmaurice with a pillow. The body was not found for hours. Lord Fitzmaurice's wife was pulled out of her carriage on the road and murdered. The redcoats could not be everywhere. The British Lion had her cubs serving all over the world. They could not all be in Ireland, so we could do our worst. At times, it did seem as though the entire bloody British Army was all in Ireland. It did not help that much of the army was made up of sons of Erin. They had taken the Queen's Shilling to enlist so th
ey would not starve.

  My racketeering was now supporting my mother and me rather well as well as helping causes in Ireland. We made it impossible for a landowner to ride alone any longer through the countryside. We were always watching and listening. We responded to evictions with killing those doing the evicting. After a while, the wealthy Anglo Irish had to wonder. Was a hunting accident really an accident? Was a fall off the Western cliffs into the angry Atlantic an accidental fall? If their coaches broke down, was it deliberate? If bandits robbed them, were their coachmen in on the robbery?

  From the time I arrived in London in 1848 to 1856, I made trips back and forth to Ireland undercover to help attack and kill landowners. The British government knew a shadowy organization was doing it. Part of what protected us was the fact that the government just considered us stupid micks, and I think they could not believe we could be as successful as we were. The Franciscan monks and father O'Malley had done a fine job working on my intellect. I even had some fun submitting mathematical papers about the mathematician, Fermat. I enjoyed being the boy genius that the Royal Society of Mathematics met and just could not believe someone named Moriarty could come up with such brilliance. In 1851, when I was a boy of sixteen, my paper was considered so brilliant I was actually invited to present to the Royal Mathematical Society. For the first and only time, I was allowed into part of the British inner sanctum. I will never forget the day, putting on my best suit and Father O'Malley getting the cab that would take us there. When I presented my paper, they heard my accent and looked at me askance. They were not sure which was most controversial: my youth, Irishness, or both. The fact that Father O'Malley came with me brought more stares. I still marvel I was invited and they allowed me to present my paper. Still it was an enjoyable day. They were also fools as well. Their contempt of me protects me in earning my living stealing from the nation.