Of all the ironies, none is richer nor more poignant than the prospect of any compensatory damages awarded to Bulger’s estate, in the event his estate prevails in the suit, going to the families of those he murdered. Such payments would be in accordance with a forfeiture judgment secured by prosecutors.

The Donahues of Dorchester will find themselves in the odd position of cheering on the Bulgers of South Boston, who now have something in common with the Donahues and some of Whitey Bulger’s other victims: the agony of having their loved one murdered as a result of government duplicity.

Many of Whitey Bulger’s victims were treated shabbily by the government, but the treatment of the Donahue family was especially egregious. Michael Donahue was collateral damage in the FBI’s cynical embrace of Whitey Bulger. In 1982, he made the innocent mistake of offering a ride home to an old neighborhood friend, Brian Halloran, who, unbeknownst to Donahue, had made the fatal mistake of shopping Bulger to the FBI.

Determined to protect Bulger as an informant, an FBI supervisor told Bulger’s FBI handler John Connolly about Halloran, Connolly told Bulger, and when Bulger opened fire outside a waterfront bar the bullets meant for Brian Halloran killed Michael Donahue, too, leaving Patricia Donahue a widow and her sons Michael, Shawn, and Tommy fatherless.

Like many other victims of Bulger’s violence and the FBI’s obsequiousness, the Donahues fought for justice for years. Two judges ordered the Justice Department to settle with the family, saying the FBI was responsible for Michael Donahue’s murder. But rather than allow the family to collect the $6 million initially awarded to them, the Justice Department spent untold resources appealing the judgment, before finally getting lucky in 2011 with a 2-1 decision by the US Court of Appeals that found the Donahues waited too long to file their appeal. The two judges who ruled against the Donahues actually had the temerity to suggest the family, lied to by their own government, should have read the newspapers more closely.

Patricia Donahue hopes the Bulger family gets the truth, which is a lot more than her family got all those years.

“It’s not even the money, so much as now the Bulgers will go through the same thing we did,” she said. “I hope they get some money, and I hope it goes to the victims. Then my kids can give their kids the things I couldn’t.”

Her son Tommy doubts the Bulger family will prevail and doesn’t want the money if they do.

“I don’t care anymore,” he said. “If the Bulgers get anything, give it to my mother. Getting dragged through the courts all those years, once Whitey was dead, it was over for me. I’m done. I’m just done.”