Letter From Galway

On the plane, the stewardess asked if I'd like a bottle of Guinness. At 6 in the morning?

Um ... no thanks.

I was proving to be a poor advertisement for me nation.

Milwaukee was up to its arse in snow and I knew in Ireland, in me hometown of Galway, they were having spring weather.

After a reading, we went to ... yup, the pub. And the customers, alerted to me arrival, had lined up shots of Jameson and green Guinness. It's a complete mystery to us in Ireland how you could desecrate a pint with green dye. Are ye stone mad and we do know ye mean well but god almighty.

Then friends of mine laid on a party that would put the Irish to shame, mountains of delicious food and not a green cabbage in sight and no spuds or bacon but a choice of every other dish you've ever longed for and as they knew I was coming, a crate of Jameson. I kid you not.

In Ireland, we'd be supplying pots of tea and soda bread.

I rang home before hitting me bed and asked the family what they had for their St. Patrick's Day dinner. I hate to smash myths and folklore, but what they had was typical of the new rich international Ireland:

Chicken curry

Nice merlot

Cheesecake

My teenage daughter had fries and a Big Mac.

I know I should lie, I owe it to the Irish Tourist Board, and say they had

Stew, with spuds and bacon

Poteen

Custard and rhubarb.

In hope of rescuing the old lore, I asked if they watched The Chieftains, but alas, my wife watched Dr. Phil and my daughter watched The O.C.

Desperate now for a touch of the past, I asked my wife if the parade had bodhrans, Uilleann pipes, spoons and jig 'n' reels.

She asked how much Jameson I'd had.

On the plane the next day to Boulder, I read in the newspaper of an American journalist who approached a man in an Aran sweater, on Grafton Street, believing he'd found a real Irishman and was told the man had arrived two days ago from Bosnia.

I began to sing the opening lines of "Galway Bay."

Ken Bruen is the award-winning author of The Dramatist (St. Martin's Minotaur) and editor of Dublin Noir (Akashic).