By Tom deignan

WELL, America still loves a good old-fashioned star-studded Irish gangster movie.

The Departed, starring Jack Nicholson, Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio, raked in almost $30 million for director Martin Scorsese last weekend.

But, amidst the critical hoopla and box office bonanza, it may be easy to forget that The Departed has its roots in real life. Yes, Nicholson’s Irish crime boss resembles the elusive South Boston Godfather Whitey Bulger.

But there’s more. Much more.

In fact, at the heart of The Departed is an Irish cop who is actually a traitor, working instead for the crime boss.

Two decades ago, two FBI agents initially working to put Whitey Bulger in jail ended up doing his dirty work. They played the good guys and the bad guys at the same time, just as Matt Damon does in The Departed.

As many said at the time: “Only in Southie.”

The story begins in the South Boston tenements, where both Whitey Bulger and future FBI agent John Connolly grew up.

In 1975, Connolly contacted Bulger, but instead of looking to take him down, he sought to use Bulger to target bigger criminal fish.

So, Bulger became an informant for Connolly and the FBI. Later, Connolly’s FBI partner John Morris was brought into the operation.

At first Bulger was valuable, helping nail big time Northeast gangsters such as Frankie Angiulo. As part of his deal with the FBI, Bulger supposedly insisted that he would rat only on the Italian Mafia, not the Irish.

But, as he was aiding the FBI, Bulger was also eliminating his criminal competition. In short, Whitey never ended his criminal ways -– even though FBI rules forbid granting informants legal leniency.

Nevertheless, Connolly and Morris continued filing reports depicting Bulger as an invaluable informant and model citizen.

Both were seduced by Whitey and the criminal lifestyle. The South Boston code of loyalty must also have weighed on Connolly, who probably did not want to “rat” on his fellow South Boston native.

So, when other authorities targeted Bulger and secretly bugged his office, Whitey seemed to know. He would take his conversations outside. If his car was bugged, the radio blared loud music.

It took years for officials to conclude that Bulger had law enforcement informants on the inside tipping him off -- just as Nicholson’s character does in The Departed.

Of course, no one could prove Whitey had an insider. Bulger slammed the allegations as an effort to smear his politician-brother Billy.

All the while, the mobsters and the G-men were socializing, enjoying fine food, women and wine. Morris even earned the nickname “Vino.”

The dead bodies of gangsters would surface now and then –- always, they were known Bulger enemies. By the mid-1980s, the man revered as a protector of all that was good for South Boston, was also flooding the area with drugs –- and FBI agents Connolly and Morris were in too deep to stop him.

Not until the mid-1990s, with Connolly retired and Morris re-assigned, would the FBI assemble a solid case against the Irish Godfather.

By then he had vanished.

Then, in October 1995, Morris received a call at his Virginia FBI office. A “Mister White” was on the phone.

“If I’m going to jail, you’re going to jail. I’m taking you with me, you f***.”

It was Whitey. For 10 months he’d been a ghost. He’d disappeared when the FBI finally had enough to nail him.

But the always-cautious Whitey risked it all by putting a call into his old pal “Vino” Morris, who later that very night suffered a near-fatal heart attack.

In December 2000, some 25 years after Connolly met Whitey just outside of Boston, to discuss a deal, Connolly was indicted on racketeering, conspiracy to obstruct justice, and other charges, accusations which he refuted for a long time.

As for Whitey? Well, to this day no one knows where he is. He remains on the FBI’s Most Wanted list, along with Osama bin Laden.

Otherwise, to get a glimpse of Whitey, and the way he corrupted those around him, go see Nicholson in The Departed.

(Contact at tomdeignan@earthlink.net.)