When Irish Hearts Are Happy ...

They won't be parading in Southie today; Kevin White says there is too much snow. Too much, he says, for the city's legions of green-blooded patriots to pay their annual homage to the Old Country, the snakeless home of poets, revolutionaries, and--most important--Guinness stout.

But White is a smart fellow, and a son of the Old Sod to boot, so he knows that nobody can really cancel St. Paddy's Day. The parade may go by the boards (so much the better, say some of the old-timers--who invariably get stuck in the unenviable position of following the mounted police and their prolific mounts); but in the taverns, they will know how to be after celebrating the day.

Failure to show up in an Irish bar on St. Patrick's Day is about as close to a treasonable offense as you'll find in any Irish neighborhood. There is a certain air to the Irish pub that sets it apart: the creaminess of the stout, the smokiness of the wooden bar, the perfectly spherical physique of the bartenders. But most of all there is the conversation, which ranges from Joyce to the IRA, to the sermon that new priest had the nerve to preach last Sunday, but, by the fourth beer, always settles down to Sports.

Survival Tactics

There is a simple way to survive any sports-trivia discussion in a Irish bar, and that is to realize that every major sports record established in the past 75 years belongs either to a native born Irishman, someone of Irish descent, or "someone who should have been Irish." Granted, that last category may seem a bit large, encompassing everyone from Muhammed Ali to Ernie DiGreggorio, but in the mind of an Irishman it is just a string of minor footnotes appended to the litany of Gaelic athletic glory.

Unfortunately for the sake of conversation, the litany isn't a very long one. After you get past the first few obvious names--Jack Dempsey, Mickey Cochrane, Charlie Conerly--the roster of Celtic greats starts to resemble a "Who's He?" of modern, and not-so-modern, athletics. Real old-timers--the ones ancient enough to remember when Notre Dame actually had more than two Irish ballplayers per year--like to pull out the names of The Great Ones. Big Ed Delahanty, the first man to hit four home runs in a major league game, and "Tip" O'Neill, who hit .435 in 1887 (thanks to the rules of the day, which counted walks as base hits), are perennial favorites. But O'Neill really couldn't hit the floor with a bag of shamrocks--he used to foul-tip everything near the strike zone until he finally walked (hence the nickname, which was later passed on to the Speaker of the House, who is likewise not noted as a heavy hitter). Delahanty, meanwhile, had the poor judgement to end his career by getting drunk and strolling off a train trestle during a blizzard. Not exactly the type of ballplayers you'd want to trade your precious 1957 Willie Mays bubble-gum cards for; but to listen to some folks, they're the cream of the crop.

Of course, recent years have seen a resurgence of Irish blood in the locker-rooms as the likes of Ken McAffee and Ronnie Perry have again brought joy to the dyspeptic spirits of greenhearted barflies throughout the land. But it's never enough just for Notre Dame to beat Texas; that's expected. The trick comes in convincing the heathens that the Irish aren't making a comeback, but that they've been on top all along.

Of course, St. Paddy's Day makes the task a little easier. My uncle used to refer to March 17 as "a day when Irishmen of all nations get together to celebrate," and he had a point. So if the guy on the next stool over insists that the key to John Havelicek's success is his fine Irish blood, don't start to argue. Relax and drink up--today, everyone is an Honorary Irishman.