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A dark, moody and very violent mob drama about four Irish-American brothers in New York City. Tommy (Jonathan Tucker) was the smart one, an aspiring artist who wanted to escape the family’s life of crime but was constantly being pulled back in to bail out his wayward brothers. Hotheaded Jimmy (Tom Guiry) limped around with a game leg, the result of a childhood accident caused by Tommy (who had never revealed that he was at fault, leaving him with a load of guilt). Kevin (Michael Stahl-David). Kevin was the rather simple-minded muscle and youngest Sean was the ladies man. They mostly ran small-time rackets out of the family bar, the Firecracker, but then got into a dispute with the local Italian mob boss, resulting in their massacre of the boss and four of his men. Their power in the neighborhood began to rise. Nicky Cottero (Kirk Acevedo) was he successor the slain Italian boss and Derek “Dokey” Farrell (Peter Greene) another Italian mobster. Jenny Reilly (Olivia Wilde) was the Donnellys’ friend since childhood, on whom Tommy had a crush and Joey “Ice Cream” (Keith Noble) a family friend and habitual liar who served as the series’ somewhat unreliable narrator. There were family tensions, crooked cops, shootings and savage beatings, often accompanied by operatic music in the style of ‘The Sopranos’.
Narrator Joey referred to the Donnellys as “Black Irish” (i.e. dark-haired or swarthy): however, the title was also homage to a centuries-old Irish feud that had spilled over into Canada in the 1800s and resulted in the 1880 massacre of five members of the Donnelly family.
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