EDITOR’S NOTE:NR’s Elizabeth Fisher bought some NRO regulars and NR staff a round and asked them about their fantasy Saint Patrick’s Day. The green question: “Picture your perfect Saint Patrick’s Day: Where are you? What’s playing? What’s in your hand?”
Rick Brookhiser
I’m at Caneel Bay, on St. John, in the U.S. Virgin Islands. I’m on Scott Beach, which is protected by a reef. There is no music, since it is forbidden. The little black headed gulls call. The beach is a blinding white carpet. In my hand is a comfortable old shoe of a book–Trollope, say–which I am not reading. The only green things are sea grape leaves that rattle and, if I turned my head, palm fronds that whisper. I don’t turn my head. Happy St. Patrick’s Day.
Richard Brookhiser is a senior editor of NR and the author of Gentleman Revolutionary: Gouverneur Morris, the Rake Who Wrote the Constitution, among other books.
Ed Capano
Perfect St. Pat’s Day: Lighting a candle for my Irish born mother at morning Mass; treating the NR office staff, PROVIDED they are wearing something green, to lunch at Kavanagh’s (corned beef and cabbage washed down with a pint of Guinness); a spot on 5th avenue on the upper East Side of Manhattan, cheering the various counties as they march past with a special cheer for the NYPD and NYFD pipe bands.
–Ed Capano is National Review’s publisher.
Erin Carden
I am in Dublin, Ireland, walking through the cobble stoned streets of Temple Bar headed towards O’Connell Street to Messier Maguire’s. Once I arrive, the bartender (who resembles a little Irish leprechaun, sans the pot of gold) greets me at the door. Discovering that my middle name is Maguire, the little leprechaun tells me that drinks are on the house. Ice-cold Guinness remains in my hand throughout the night. Between pints of Harp, my friends Meaghan and Kevin are doing their award-winning Irish step dance routine to the sounds of the bagpipe and fiddle. Eileen Hogan, the only person I know who can handle smoking a cigarette, drinking a pint, and carrying on a conversation simultaneously, has come from nearby Sandyford to celebrate. Messier Maguire’s is packed with all my loved ones, and even my Italian friend, Anthony Miritello, wishes he was Irish, if only for a night.
–Erin Carden is assistant to NR’s editor.
Liz Fisher
If I could be in Ireland, I’d be in the Aran Islands, riding a rental bike around the beautiful Inis Mor. Then for the evening, I’d ferry over to Galway towards the bohemian section of town to sit at a pub and listen to some good old Irish Trad. music, with a Murphy’s in my right hand and my left hand keeping the beat. But since I’ll be in D.C. this year, I’ll either head out to Molly Malone’s in Clarendon or check out Finn MacCool’s in SE. The Washington Post has a good list of bars and events. Actually, since it is a Feast Day, I might stay at home and enjoy the break from my Lenten resolution.
–Liz Fisher is an editorial associate in NR’s D.C. office
Susan Brady Konig
I’m home, away from all the crazy drunken Irish. The Quiet Man is in the DVD player. I’m eating potatoes and drinking beer and I have the remote in my hand so I can rerun that first passionate kiss between Sean Thornton, retired boxer, and Mary Kate Danaher, spinster, in the windy doorway of the cottage.
–Susan Konig, a journalist, is author of the upcoming Why Animals Sleep So Close to the Road (And Other Lies I Tell My Children).
Kevin Longstreet
A perfect St. Patrick’s would be a mild day to begin with so that the Parade in NYC is actually pleasant. Then, off to one of the many Irish bars in NYC for a traditional Irish lunch and several pints of Harp. I’d proceed to either the policemen or firemen private invitation only parties on the West Side of NYC. There: The bagpipe bands for both divisions always play, the beer flows endlessly, and you’re always surrounded by good men and wonderful stories. Of course, having the next day off is always a treat that would make my St. Patrick’s Day perfect.
–Kevin Longstreet is assistant to NR’s publisher.
Andrew C. McCarthy
I’d like to be with the rest of the clan–my four brothers and my sister, my broods, and theirs–in front of my saintly mother’s hearth on the old sod (i.e., the Bronx), listening to “Danny Boy” and raising an Irish Mist. I know that must sound pretty common, but it’s warm, it’s only once a year, it brings back wonderful memories, and … we almost never do it.
–Andrew C. McCarthy, who led the 1995 terrorism prosecution against Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and eleven others, is a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
John J. Miller
Of all of the things that might go into a perfect St. Patrick’s Day, one of the essentials would be a discussion, with my Irish Catholic in-laws and friends, about what went wrong (for them) in the last college football season, when the Michigan Wolverines whupped the Notre Dame Fighting Irish.
–John J. Miller is national political reporter for National Review and the co-author, most recently, of Our Oldest Enemy: A History of America’s Disastrous Relationship with France.
Kate Walsh O’Beirne
On my perfect St. Patrick’s Day I’m sitting in the Horseshoe bar at the Shelbourne Hotel on St. Stephen’s Green. The bar, where I spent many pleasant hours as an undergraduate during a Dublin semester, is quiet at noon because most Dubliners are at Mass. But, I’m enjoying an Irish coffee and listening to my companion, a leading Irish journalist who is recalling her pride in Ronald Reagan as an Irish-American and detailing her admiration for President George Bush’s bold leadership. In my hand I’m holding the keys to the American ambassador’s beautiful house in Phoenix Park.
–Kate O’Beirne in National Review’s Washington editor.