Slàinte (health) and Erin Go Braugh!

That's the Cat's Eye in green in the middle

Good morning, my fine friends! Slàinte (health) and Erin Go Braugh!  Coming from a Scots-Irish family on my mother’s side (Burke and Rogers) and three of my four great-grandparents on my father’s side (Rafferty, McClafferty, O’Brian & Weichel), I always have celebrated St Patrick’s Day.  It’s my husband’s favorite holiday, as well.  In our younger days, this would have been a day of heavy drinking but, alas, we’ve passed that gate and now just look forward to gobs of corned beef and cabbage, Irish Stew and soda bread!

My very first bartending job was at the Cat’s Eye Pub in Fells Point, MD.  If you’ve never been down to the harbor there, you are really missing something. Fells Point is a unique little area of Baltimore City and only encompasses about 8 square city blocks. It ends on Thames St., right at the water’s edge of the Inner Harbor in the Chesapeake Bay.  These days it’s the hotspot of the young crowd and has always had at least 60 bars in those few blocks. Back when I got my job there, it was still a little bit seedy, full of foreign sailors docked on Thames in their big fishing trawlers.  I had taken one of those 2 week bartending courses where they teach you 500 drinks and all the ins and outs of bartending.  Back then, you only had to be 18 to drink in MD.  Having always looked a little more mature for my age, I waltzed into the Cat’s Eye and told them that I was older and had been bartending for years!  The manager, who looked like the spitting image of Abe Lincoln, actually bought my story and hired me. 

The pub is housed in a 18^th century rowhouse that was very narrow and it was amazing to me how many people could fit in there and still accommodate an Irish band.  We had Guinness on tap and IRA jackets with real bullet holes hanging from the ceiling back in 1976.  They even had real Irish wakes in the bar, propping the deceased in his coffin up where the band played. It was a wild, wonderful bar to work in. Back then, most of the clientele were foreign sailors and local Fells Point residents, with bands of college co-eds on weekends.

The bar still looks the same 36 years later!

Although I don’t like beer, I do love Guinness, as I think it tastes more like molasses! The first thing you learned in the bar was how to order your beer.  If you were pro-IRA, you ordered a Black and Tan; if you were loyal to the government, you ordered a Half and Half.  This, of course, is half Guinness and half Beck’s beer.  Many a bar fight ensued over the beer ordering, as Black and Tan is a slur on the government.  As you can imagine, St Patty’s Day at the Cat’s Eye was legendary! Oh, and we always dyed the water in front of the pub green!

But today, Rob and I are just going down to the Moose for some corned beef and cabbage at noon.  I’m taking along 6 loaves of Irish Soda Bread for everyone.  It’s going to be too pretty today to waste it on drinking.  We might return later in the evening, as a friend of mine, Melody, will be playing her guitar, but it certainly won’t be like the “old” days.  While I may have Irish blood running in my veins, I am thankful it’s not the alcoholic sort! 

I hope all of you have a wonderful day, whether you celebrate St Pat’s or not.  I hear we in the US do a better job these days than the Irish over there, according to Celtic Woman, who I saw on the Today show the other morning.