Irish Pipes

One pretty good way to start your weekend is with some bagpipes.



These happen to be the Shannon Rovers of Chicago, playing in downtown Chicago at a real estate event I attended toward the end of last week. They played -- I don't remember, but they were bagpipe-y tunes, skillfully done.

As the name suggests, the Shannon Rovers are an Irish pipe band. A history of the organization is here, stating that the early goals of the club were, "for the promotion of Irish music and to help members who are in distress; to run dances and social affairs; to finance these objectives." Unstated is the opportunity to drink, but I won't dwell on old Irish stereotypes.

St. Patrick's Horse Outside, With Bongos

Spring Break has arrived, more or less. It's a faint occasion for me, since I'll be working next week, but the girls are off starting Saturday, which will certainly change the tone of life around the house during the day. Posting will resume on March 27.

Spring is nearly here, too. This morning I heard a woodpecker and then saw it on a tree limb not far from my front yard. I spotted some robins and the very first croci peeping out. The largest piles of snow on nearby blacktops, mostly accumulated in February -- mostly on February 1 -- are finally gone.

Best of all, I ate lunch today on my backyard deck. Not ideal for an alfresco lunch, since it was overcast and windy, and I needed a jacket, but simple fact of eating outside was enough. I even saw a fly buzzing around the planks of the deck, but it was too sluggish to make a run at my lunch.

I was glad to see that Messenger has successfully entered into orbit around Mercury, the first spaceship ever to do so, which happened just a short time ago. Another marvel of the age. Something I'm more than glad to pay taxes to support.

I didn't realize until reading about the craft recently that the name's actually a tortured acronym: MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging. I'd assumed it wasn't quite so literal a name. You know, humanity's messenger to the inner Solar System. Just a quibble. Even after more than five decades of space flight, it's still a signal achievement.

I've pontificated on St. Patrick's Day before, and so far we're no closer to a time when North American calendar makers also include St. David, St. George and St. Andrew as a matter of course, but never mind. Ann came home today and wondered out loud whether any leprechauns were going to be around this evening. I said no, it's really hard for them to get visas these days. She paid me no mind.

Here's something suitably Irish for the feast day of St. Patrick. A creation of lads from Limerick, in fact, and something not suitable for your children or your workplace, unless you work, say, at a tattoo parlor.

Link for Facebook readers.

This is quasi-Irish and OK for kids, but they might not get the joke.

Link for Facebook readers.

Also, something not Irish at all. A day without Richard Feynman on the orange-juice bongos is like a day without sunshine.

Link for Facebook readers. But really, you should look at the original blog sometime.

Things You See at Heritage Green Park, Chicago

Across the street from Old St. Patrick's Church is the small Heritage Green Park, which didn't exist only a few years ago. But Mayor Daley loves to plant trees. A landscape architect I interviewed in the early 2000s complained that the City of Chicago was hogging all the good trees from nurseries in several nearby states.

Heritage Green Park, taking up about a quarter block at the northeast corner of Des Plaines and Adams, was surface parking as recently as three or four years ago. Now it has trees and bushes and benches and footpaths and a cast-iron fence most of the way around its perimeter -- that's another thing that the mayor likes, cast-iron fences. Though not officially considered a dog park, the human and canine population of the near West Side have apparently taken to it in a big way. I saw a handful of dogs walking their humans in the few minutes I was there. The park is probably a smellfest we humans will never fully appreciate.

Near the southwest corner of the park is a statue of a young woman in flowing robes standing on a curious rock. The statue too is fairly new to Chicago, erected in 2007. Two granite stones at some distance from the statue give its name and describe it, one in English and the other in what I guess is Irish Gaelic, but the raised letters on the both stones have already been partly effaced, so I could barely make out the name of the work: Gráinne.

An article published in Galway, Ireland, notes the following: "Gráinne is a tribute to the many thousands who emigrated from Ireland and means Grace in Gaelic. This sculpture symbolises the traditional Gaelic society before it dramatically changed in the 160’s [sic, I think the article means 1600s, though second-century Ireland might have undergone dramatic changes I don't know about] and is inspired by an archaeological finding of a young girl preserved in a peat bog. Prehistoric European sculptures of women were depicted with the left hand raised while those of men used the right hand, thought to be a gesture of blessing. The base of the sculpture is derived from the famous Turoe Stone, a Celtic pagan monument from County Galway, dating from the time of Christ."

So the heritage is Heritage Green Park is about the Irish, not any of the other dozens of ethnicities that came, and still come, to Chicago. From the peat bog to the shores of Lake Michigan. Well, why not; it's still Mr. Daley's town, for now.

This little sign, also near Gráinne, hasn't been worn away by the few seasons since the fall of 2007. The Plumbing Council of Chicagoland might have insisted on something a little more durable than raised lettering on granite, and they got it. There's no problem in reading their plaque. I wish there were a plumbing plaque in Gaelic, too. An Irish online dictionary I found through Google tells me that Gaelic for the plumbing trade is "pluiméireacht."

The Deeds of St. Patrick

It was genuinely warm today, not warm for two hours in the afternoon, but warm from mid-morning to past sunset. Our thermostat sat on its metaphorical hands all day, ready to command the heater to fire itself up, but it never came to pass. Outside, a bug landed on a book I was carrying, and I swore I saw a small cloud of gnats at one point. Maybe that was a spring-onset illusion.

But that's all we get for a while. One warm day.

I walked about a mile through the neighborhood in late afternoon, enjoying my coatlessness and taking note of all the Irish-themed decor. Not all that much, actually. Some cheap cardboard shamrocks, a stock image of a leprechaun painted on a beaten-up wood panel, and a sign or two in some windows.

Someone had scrawled "Happy St. Patrick's Day" on the sidewalk in white chalk, and there was a genuine Irish tricolor flying at one house -- the first time I'd ever seen that flag flown for the occasion, except at the downtown Chicago March 17 parades I used to attend because they were near my office.

As I've said before, St. Patrick's day is fine. But I have a quixotic desire to see a St. David of Wales (March 1), St. George of England (April 23) and St. Andrew of Scotland (November 30) also celebrated in non-saintly ways here in the New World. But maybe they didn't catch on because their miracles weren't as awesome (in the old sense) as those of St. Patrick, who besides chasing the snakes out of the Ireland also turned water into Guinness.

Erin Go Boom

You find yourself in downtown Indianapolis on a cold evening in early March and you want to eat dinner. No car is available, since you took an airport limo into town. So you head out down Meridian on foot to check out a diner sort of place the desk clerk mentioned.

Before long, a ragged, muttering black man starts to follow you, even crossing the street when you do. Almost no one else is within sight on the street, and only a few cars pass by. Mere panhandler, or something else? The diner is still a couple of blocks away, but he’s getting closer.

That’s how I ended up eating dinner on Tuesday night at the Claddagh Irish Pub, “Authentic Irish Food & Spirits,” in Indy. My shadow actually entered the foyer of Claddagh after I did, but at the same time as him two women were also entering, and he muttered to them, “I’ll hold the door for you ladies.” That was the last I saw of him. Probably he just wanted a voluntary donation to his drink fund, but I wasn’t sure. It isn’t good to be paranoid about street crime, but I don’t want to ignore the possibility, either.

Once inside the restaurant, I looked around and thought, might as well eat here. The theme was Irish alright, with a bar dominating the room, and plenty of ads for Guinness and Bailey’s. Though well lit, the place seemed dim because everything was brown—the tables, the stools, the pattern wallpaper, the floor. Note: stools. There were no chairs, only stools. I ordered a pint of Kinsale, an imperial pint of 20 oz., the menu said. Ah, excellent. The buttinskis of Brussels have no sway here in the USA, and cannot pester us into trashing traditional weights and measures. I’ll raise a pint to that anytime.

The waitress told me that the fish and chips were the house specialty, and I saw a few plates of it go by, monster fish fried brown, hunks of brown fried potatoes. Looked great. But I wasn’t in the mood for it, so I ordered something a little less familiar, bangers and mashed. I got an artfully prepared plate of tender sausages arrayed on a pillow of garlic mashed potatoes. How authentic is this? I don’t care. The sausages were as good as sausages get.

The menu also told me that the design of the restaurant was meant to evoke the pubs of old Ireland, old as in 1916. I thought that was an odd date to choose, but I guess the owners sympathize with Irish nationalism. It’s just the place, then, to have some pints and get ready for your part in the Easter Rebellion.