By Tom Deignan

One of them was an old time Boston pol who defended his turf and ran with a gang back in the day. The other had a famous prison sit down with — and hoped he would be the heir to — Jimmy “The Gent” Burke. That’s the Irish gangster unforgettably portrayed by Robert DeNiro in Goodfellas.

The Bostonian was James Kelly, a powerful, controversial opponent of busing and racial integration, who died last week at the age of 66. The other was Frank Smith, a notorious mob-connected killer who was arrested yet again late last year. Critics charge Smith has escaped justice because of a deal he cut with the feds.

It never ceases to amaze me the way old school Irish America never quite dies out. Oh sure, the Irish have been in the Ivy Leagues for a century now, and their numbers in New York City have been shrinking for almost as long.

God knows that if I meet some fresh-faced college graduate just in New York from Kerry or Dublin, I fully understand when they tell me they live in some hip enclave such as Williamsburg or the Lower East Side, rather than an established Irish neighborhood. Maybe they’re a little tired of hearing stories about white-haired ward heelers and gangsters.

Be that as it may, the Frank Smiths and James Kellys of the world are still out there. And like it or not, their stories are central to the Irish American story.

It’s not pretty. That, of course, is the point.

Let’s begin with Frank Smith, a “hard-headed Irish American gangster,” in the words of mob chronicler Jerry Capeci, who runs the authoritative web site www.ganglandnews.com.

Smith came out of Brooklyn and aligned himself with numerous Italian American mobsters. Ultimately, he admitted to five killings, one for the Colombo family which became notorious because the killers whacked the wrong man. According to police and published reports, Smith and his cronies were supposed to knock off an attorney but instead murdered his dad.

Smith admitted to the killings but later ratted on numerous mob associates and ended up spending just a year in jail on a drug charge.

Smith entered the witness protection program, but it appears he has not been able to keep himself out of trouble. In late 2006 he was in a car that was pulled over. When police searched the vehicle they found stolen plasma TVs.

A controversy is now raging because relatives of Smith’s victims believe the government should not stick by this admitted killer who seems to keep getting in trouble.

“Exactly where Smith was living at the time of the plasma TV bust is a secret, but it was obviously not too far from the Big Apple,” Capeci wrote recently. “Smith was close enough to his old Brooklyn haunts to come back occasionally and hobnob with old buddies.”

Capeci adds, “After a 1990s prison meeting with Jimmy ‘The Gent’ Burke, who pulled off the daring $6 million Lufthansa Airlines robbery featured in the movie Goodfellas, Smith talked openly about one day being a successor of sorts to the legendary Irish gangster.”

It seems Smith, instead, is going the way of that other Irish goodfella Henry Hill.

Then there’s James Kelly, from South Boston, who ran with the Mullins gang in his youth and later served seven terms as City Council president. When Southie became a symbol of racial intolerance during the 1970s, Kelly was unapologetic. He believed South Boston schools and housing projects should not be forcefully integrated.

Many thought he was a racist. But he was “idolized among the long-established Irish American families that gave South Boston a national reputation for tough-minded, community-oriented, politically savvy cohesion,” as the Boston Globe put it.

Kelly nearly came to blows when he was arguing with an African American lawmaker in 1991, though the two later patched things up.

Either way, it was interesting to hear Massachu-setts’ first black governor remember Kelly fondly.

“He was a passionate advocate for his beloved neighborhood and constituents. His dedication to public service was unquestioned,” said Governor Deval Patrick.

The old school also remembered Kelly.

“He had that most valuable quality of courage…to the point where you assert (your beliefs), stand for it, and fight for it,” said the former state Senate president from South Boston, William M. Bulger.

In case you forgot, that’s Whitey Bulger’s brother.

(Contact at tomdeignan@ earthlink.net)