It's St. Patrick's Day, and you're thinking of putting down the remote, changing out of your velour sweats and popping into an Irish pub for a pint of Guinness, some corned beef and cabbage, and Irish music.
The problem is, you're sort of a recluse (velour sweats?) and don't really know where to go to enjoy the day. So to help, a couple of Sun reporters set out recently on a quest to visit a number of Irish bars in the area, sample the food, drink and conviviality, and write down their impressions. (Dirty job, someone had to do it, etc.)
Be forewarned: If you're looking for the quaint Irish pub of misty memory, with rough-hewn wooden tables, sawdust floors, a turf-fire crackling in the fireplace, and ruddy-faced men, women and children of all ages laughing, singing and dancing to traditional Irish music, you'll be disappointed.
The American version of the Irish pub is more likely to feature lots of polished wood and brass, Irish knickknacks, a menu that skews more to Buffalo wings than bangers and mash, rock music blaring over the sound system when the trio on stage playing a stylized version of "Danny Boy" and kill-the-Brits music takes a break, a college basketball game on the flat-screen TVs and the usual low-hanging clouds of cigarette smoke.
(Smoking is banned in Irish workplaces, including its 11,000 pubs, when Baltimore's smoking ban starts Jan. 1.)
Nevertheless, here's a purely subjective look at some places you may want to visit today.
Maggie Moore's 21 N. Eutaw Street 410-837-2100
Vaulted tin ceilings, stained glass windows; we didn't know whether to say a Hail Mary or order a pint. But this Irish saloon in the former Eutaw Savings Bank building - the mahogany bar was once the bank counter - has a great selection of Irish beers including Guinness, Harp and Smithwick's, Magners Irish Cider, and Irish whiskeys such as Jameson, Bushmills, Powers, Redbreast and Midleton Rare. (As far as food goes, five words: Maryland crab and corn chowder.)
Manager Mick MacEoin said there are seven Irish natives on the staff, and bartender Colm Kirwan said the joint is packed in the summer with patrons watching Gaelic football on TV.
Which reminds us of something we once heard: "What makes a great Irish bar?"
Answer: "Irish employees."
Ryan's Daughter 600 E. Belvedere Ave., Belvedere Square 410-464-1000
The Irish do many things well: laugh, drink, fight, dance, curse, sing, tell stories, write stories. But Irish cuisine is not generally acknowledged as a strength of the republic.
(Note: Reporter Kevin Cowherd grew up on Irish food, owing to a mother and aunt who hailed from County Roscommon in the old country. The reporter had a happy childhood but does not exactly get misty-eyed thinking back on some of the Irish dishes prepared for him in his youth.)
(Note: Rob Hiaasen is Norwegian and doesn't know a banger from a Bushmills.)
Nevertheless, the fish and chips ($15.99) at Ryan's Daughter were terrific. The owners boast that the Guinness-battered and fried cod fillets are "The Best in Town!"
And on the sound system - Van Morrison's "Brown-Eyed Girl." No complaints here.
James Joyce 616 S. President St. 410-727-5107
On the Saturday night we visited this charming bar, with its dark decor and rooms divided by high wood partitions, the place was mobbed. A doorman had opened the door for us - a nice touch.
Listening to the brogue of the Irish bartender, sipping a creamy Guinness and watching rugby on the flat-screen TV, it was almost possible to believe you were actually in Ireland - until the guy on stage launched into a dirge-like rendition of Bruce Springsteen's "Thunder Road" and a woman at the next table shouted to the waiter: "Another Bud Light here, hon."
A guy at our table - let's call him Sean - mustered: "This is like an American bar trying to be an Irish bar that is trying to be an American bar." We think he said that.
J. Patrick's Irish Pub 1371 Andre St.
410-244-8613
Hard by the landmark Domino Sugar sign, this windowless, unpretentious Locust Point fixture has all the charm of a basement rec room.
But the people are friendly, the beer is cold and reasonably priced, a video-poker machine sits in the corner and an Irish-music band plays on most nights. (The band Rigadoo was whipping the crowd into a frenzy - OK, we exaggerate - with its version of "Black Velvet Band" when we walked in.)
No TV competes against the music or conversation. "Help Wanted: No Irish Need Apply" reads a relic of a time when Irish immigrants were discriminated against in America. There's another relic here - a trough urinal.
And there, on the dance floor every third weekend of the month, is 84-year-old John McCollum in his dynamic green sweater. He and his wife, Mary, come to hear Rigadoo.
"My Mary and I dance a few songs," McCollum said, "and in between, I have to dance with these young girls. It's a real hardship."
Slainte 1700 Thames St. 410-563-6600
Slainte (pronounced SLAHN-cha) means "Cheers!" or "To your health!" in Gaelic, which sets the tone for this classy-looking two-story Fells Point bar and restaurant.
So does the impressive menu, topped by an old Irish proverb - "Thirst is the end of drinking and sorrow is the end of drunkenness" - and a saying about the Irish attributed to Sigmund Freud: "This is one race of people for whom psychoanalysis is of no use whatsoever."
It's said a bartender at a true Irish bar will create a shamrock in the creamy head of your Guinness.
Guinness No. 1 is ordered. No shamrock.
It's also said Irish bars are known for live music. The sound system at this moment, however, features Led O'Zeppelin.
Claddagh Pub and Restaurant 2918 O'Donnell St.
410-522-4220
The square in Canton was hopping and parking spaces were at a premium when we hit Claddagh, where much of the clientele was engaged in the traditional Irish pursuit of watching the Florida-Vanderbilt college basketball game on the plasma TVs.
Apparently, we hit them on a bad night for the hot corned beef sandwich (7.95), which was tough and dry, but the hot Maryland crab dip ($8.95) was rich and creamy.
A sepia photograph of an old Irish guy with a banged-up nose, smiling a world-record smile, hung on the wall across the bar.
"Who's that?" we asked the bartender.
"The happiest guy in the world."
Mick O'Shea's 328 N. Charles St. 410-539-7504
The ghost of O'Malley's March - Gov. Martin O'Malley's Celtic rock band - is alive and well on the postage-stamp-sized stage of this venerable bar and restaurant. Mick O'Shea's remains one of the best places for beer drinkers to watch the St. Patrick's Day parade. Inside, road signs point to Doolin and Pallaskenry - but we're still in Baltimore. Irish flags grace the bar, as does a wonderful, 42-year-old mural of ancestral Ireland.
You can't go on an Irish pub crawl without stopping at Mick O'Shea's. It might be a city law.
Tir Na Nog 201 E. Pratt St. 410-483-8968
The furnishings for this Harborplace bar are interesting, combining lots of dark wood and pieces and bric-a-brac from churches and castles in Ireland. But except for a few of the Celtic trappings, it could pass for a hotel bar in Silver Spring, with the dim lights on the tables and "Lovely Day for a Guinness - Go Terps!" posters on the wall.
Its Web site offers a virtual tour, but when we visited the real bar on a cold Saturday night last month, the place was pretty dead. We had a Guinness but couldn't get any snacks at midnight. We just weren't feeling it here. To be fair, Harborplace isn't exactly conducive to an Irish bar setting.
Still, are "Irish Drinking Team" T-shirts really necessary?
An Poitin Stil 2323 York Road, Timonium 410-560-7900
Translated, An Poitin Stil quite sarcastically means "good luck parking" on a busy night.
You may think you've had a few too many Harps even before you enter this lively Baltimore County bar, which has an entrance that looks like a castle's and an outside said to replicate actual pub fronts in Ireland.
Inside, you have a bar area that looks like pulpits, another that looks like a small shop, another that looks like a cottage nook - yep, it was easily the most architecturally interesting pub we visited.
It's shoulder-to-shoulder, and over our shoulder a young guy orders a Black & Blue (Guinness over Blue Moon beer with a wedge of orange) and recommends we try an Irish Uprising (Guinness over a Resurrection beer). The possibilities appear endless.
The Stil also wins the coolest Web site award hands-down. (thestill.net)
Epilogue So after the pub crawling is over, what have we learned?
That a true Irish bar is a figment of our imagination?
That Springsteen should never be attempted in a smoky crowded bar - except maybe by Springsteen Himself?
Well, to borrow one of James Joyce's favorite words, we did have an epiphany: An Irish bar is as good as the authentic company you are with - or find.
"People. It's people who make a bar what it is," as bartender Danny Stanton says over at J. Patrick's.
So, who really needs a shamrock in their Guinness?
rob.hiaasen@baltsun.com kevin.cowherd@baltsun.com