Although commonly refered to as "the irish mob" many members of the west end gang have scottish and english surnames. Example Allan Ross. The fighting Hiltons {Alex, Dave, Matthew, and their Dad}long associated with various members of the gang, as well as with italian mobsters like the late Frank Cotroni, are also largely of scottish descent.
An examination of the first names and family names of the gang members leads me to believe that the west end gang is of mixed irish, scottish, and english ancestry. There are also people of french canadian, italian, and jewish descent who have worked regularly with the gang over the years. The members of the gang, whether of irish, scottish, english, italian or french descent appear to be primarily of the Catholic faith though it wouldn't surprise me if a few were of protestant background. The catholic connection is significant in that many of the members of the gang probably knew each other from the catholic elementary schools and catholic high schools located in the areas where most of them grew up : Griffintown, Verdun, Pointe St. Charles, Lower NDG {Upper Lachine road, St. Jacques etc.}, St. Henri, Cote St. Paul, etc.
As a name the Irish mob or the Irish gang sounds good. It makes the gang sound menancing by tying it in with other Irish mobs in places like Boston, New York, and Detroit. Incidentally those irish mobs also have a scottish component. To take an example : While I was in Maine two summers ago I read a piece in the Boston Globe newspaper about a fellow named MacKenzie {a classic scottish surname} who concocted a plot to defraud a wealthy downtown Boston church of its real estate holdings.
Irish mob sounds good but it would perhaps be more accurate to refer to the west end gang as the "west end anglophone catholic working class mob". But that is a big mouthful. It will never catch on even if it is more precise.
Regards, Randall Grant
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