Over the weekend I attended fellow Cornerite Shannen Coffin’s 40th birthday party. Shannen’s fete was partly inspired by my own 40th birthday bash — last March we rented out my old haunt, The Toledo Lounge, to relive some of the worst excesses of my youth. Alas, Shannen’s favorite bar is closed and was in Louisiana anyway. So, he tried to reinvent the bar at his house, “importing” a few cases of Smithwick’s to help get his Irish on.

He also brought in Danny O’Flaherty, a simply fantastic “Celtic balladeer,” for some authentic Irish entertainment (more on him in a moment). But the highlight was Shannen’s bold turn(s) at the microphone himself. It turns out that for a lawyer, Shannen is a great singer. And, for a singer, he’s a not-half-bad lawyer!

Video exists. Whether we can get it up here remains to be seen. He might be able to prevent it. The guy was Dick Cheney’s lawyer, after all.

Update: From a reader:

On the next NRO cruise, I hope we get to hear a Shannen Coffin/Mark Steyn duet of “Danny Boy”.