Documentary focuses on priest’s crusade against crime

THE story of a courageous priest who took on New York gangsters and inspired a classic film is the subject of a TV documentary.

For over a decade, Fr John Corridan, a Jesuit priest who was the son of emigrants from Kerry, challenged Irish mobsters and corrupt union officials who controlled the New York waterfront during the 1940s and 1950s.

His one-man crusade struck at the heart of organised crime in the city and exposed extortion, corruption and murder.