Opinion: the term was used to describe a gang of youths who were associated with various crimes in Dublin's inner city in 1976
By Ciara Molloy, University of Sheffield
Why does history matter? Particularly, why does history matter when it comes to youth crime? The Bugsy Malones, a delinquent youth subculture that emerged in 1970s Dublin, is an excellent case in point when trying to answer these questions.
The term 'Bugsy Malone' came from a spoof gangster film directed by Alan Parker which was loosely based on the criminal careers of Al Capone and Bugs Moran and first screened in Irish cinemas in December 1976. The following month, Evening Herald journalist Liam Ryan used the term ‘Bugsy Malone’ to describe a gang of youths aged between 11 and 15 years old who had emerged in Dublin’s inner city.
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The trailer for the 1976 film Bugsy Malone that gave its name to the gang
These youths had allegedly carried out a jump-over (a robbery of a bank or business) of Northern Bank on O'Connell Street and were also associated with handbag snatching from vehicles stopped at traffic lights. The intersection of Summerhill and Gardiner Street even became known for a time as 'Handbag Junction' because of their activities.
The Bugsy Malone episode was relatively short-lived. With the opening of Loughan House in Blacklion, Co Cavan as a youth detention centre between 1978 and 1983, the subculture largely faded from public view. It is therefore tempting to dismiss this episode as a matter of antiquarian interest. To do so, however, would be to undermine the relevance of the Bugsy Malone episode for the present.
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From RTÉ Archives, young people give their experiences of heroin addiction, and how they were affected by the drug (episode of 'Seven Days' broadcast 29 September 1972)
One of the ways in which this relevance becomes apparent is the tendency for moral panics to erupt over youth crime. A moral panic is a disproportionate reaction to a perceived social crisis, and it is characterised by factors such as sensationalised media reporting and high levels of social anxiety.
A moral panic repertoire soon came to dominate press coverage of the Bugsy Malones. One senior detective quoted in the Herald on September 4th 1978, for instance, compared these 'young thugs' to ‘rats preying on the public’. This type of dehumanising language is singularly unhelpful in addressing youth offending and serves to marginalise rather than reintegrate. At a time where social concern over youth crime in Dublin city is once more on the rise, the need to avoid moral panic responses remains pertinent.
Read more: Would 'zero tolerance' policing make Dublin city centre safer?
Historical approaches also help to reduce the empathy gap that exists between social outsiders and insiders by situating crime in its wider context. Oral history interviews carried out with people who encountered the subculture in a personal or professional capacity during the 1970s shed light on the deprived socio-economic backgrounds of the Bugsy Malones.
For instance, the unemployment rate in the Dublin inner-city area comprising Seán McDermott Street, Railway Street, Rutland Street, Corporation Street and Buckingham Street was 16.2% in April 1979, almost three times higher than in the wider Dublin County Borough (5.4%). Poverty may not excuse youth crime, but it does help to explain it. Placing crime in context lends itself to greater understanding of those on the margins of society.
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From BBC Archive, Don't Panic - It's Just a Moral Panic
Another way in which the Bugsy Malone episode holds implications for the present is that it shows a political tendency to over-rely on institutionalisation. Institutions like Magdalene Laundries, Mother and Baby Homes, psychiatric hospitals and industrial and reformatory schools have historically been used to confine supposedly deviant populations. While alternatives to Loughan House existed - such as day attendance centres, neighbourhood youth projects and educational programmes - policymakers chose instead to open a youth detention centre in response to the Bugsy Malones.
Locking these youths away in the remote location of Blacklion may have been a convenient option but was not an effective one; writing in Magill magazine on 21 March 1985, journalist Mark Brennock reflected that all of the first 20 detainees of Loughan House received further custodial sentences. The current use of direct provision centres as places of accommodation for asylum seekers can be seen as part of this (unimaginative) trajectory to rely on institutions as solutions for perceived social problems.
The recent trial and acquittal of Gerry 'The Monk' Hutch has led to renewed interest in the Bugsy Malones given that Hutch was an alleged member of this subculture. Earlier this year, Hutch was found not guilty of the murder of David Byrne, the Kinahan gang member who was shot dead at the Regency Hotel in 2016.
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From RTÉ Archives, Michael Raferty reports in 1986 for Today Tonight from Sheriff Street in Dublin's north inner to see what changes which have occurred since Seven Days visited in 1976
The association of Hutch with the Bugsy Malones has created a rather misleading mythology surrounding this subculture. Many of the members fell victim to the heroin epidemic of the 1980s but, in contrast, Hutch always denied involvement with drugs.
In an interview with the late journalist Veronica Guerin in 1996, Hutch said 'I’ve nothing to do with drugs and I never have. Naming me as public enemy number one is linking me to drugs. I don’t do them, sell them, finance them, nothing – I hate drugs’. His survival beyond the 1980s was the exception rather than the norm in the story of the Bugsy Malones.
From moral panics over youth crime, to the reduction of empathy gaps between the margins and mainstream, to over-reliance on institutionalisation, to contemporary criminal trials, the Bugsy Malone episode continues to hold relevance for the present. History matters when it comes to youth crime, but whether or not we choose to avail of its insights is where the real battle lies.
Dr Ciara Molloy is as a Lecturer in Criminology in the University of Sheffield. She is a former Irish Research Council Government of Ireland Postgraduate Scholarship and a Sutherland School of Law Doctoral Scholarship awardee.
The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ
