Saint Pat's at The Raven Cafe

St. Patrick's Day is upon us.

Around town folks will be crawling from pub to pub (technically bar to bar), which forces us to ask the question, "Why drag yourself along the sidewalk to a green Miller Lite when you can sit upright at The Raven, choose from any one of our great Irish imports, have a traditional Irish dinner, and listen to raucous piano music?"


Brian is putting together a number of beer specials for you, or, if you don't drink, have a green tea. Sure, the tea may be Chinese, but it's officially endorsed by the Dublin Leprechaun Tea Society (I think).

Ben and Miguel are working up a menu to feature many Irish favorites such as bangers and mash, corn-beef and cabbage, pot pies, and lamb.

Dave Manning, a returning favorite, will entertain you throughout the evening with his engaging piano stylings that fit in somewhere between Jerry Lee Lewis, Greg Brown, and Tom Waits.

I'll be sending out an e-mail for the rest of the week by tomorrow evening. In the meantime, I worked up a little story for you if you are interested.

Until Again

Raven
























Why the Leprechauns Moved To Alabama

by: Newt Lynn

1845 promised to be a good year for the people of Connacht. As the last pints were raised to the new year, spirits were high with boundless possibility.

The local planning committee had been busy tying up loose ends for the coming "Annual Connacht Potato Festival", and only a faint worry was cast over what mischievous prank might be unleashed by the local leprechauns when the tourists came round this year. The previous year had seen the Guiness kegs drained and refilled with Tangy (an early version of Tang), and the year before that Mr. Donnely's champion pedigree sheep dogs had been neutered. Nothing more than monkey business to be sure, but it was always a little embarrassing to the conservative locals since no one had actually seen one of these "leprechauns," and consequently were unable to pin the blame on something no one else believed in anyway.

The Leprechauns, for their part, had been living out in the woods for generations. They were a bitter bunch, small in stature, and constantly seeking retribution for what they called, "centuries of height discrimination."

To be fair, not one of them had sought employment in recorded leprechaun history, so it's hard to determine if "height discrimination" actually plagued their community. Still, they made do grabbing the occasional sheep or chicken that strayed too far from the group, prolifically reproducing like rabbits in the shamrock patch, and picking up loose change (kept in a community pot).

In truth, it's most likely their frustration came about from locals occasionally stumbling upon their change pots and stealing off with them. As the leprechauns saw it, 1845 was going to be their year.

Tuatha, or Tuty as he was known in the leprechaun community, had been head of the mischief committee for the past 300 years.

Short on ideas, and fearful of repetition, Tuty asked the advice of his old friend Clontarf, the amateur chemist and part-time hack wizard of the group. Clontarf had an idea. He'd been working on a potion that could be spread across the potato fields and would turn the crops sweet potato orange…a horrific notion since the town's reputation had been built on the classic Irish white potatoes everyone loved and celebrated.

Unfortunately, Clontarf's potion turned out to be a pathogenic water mould (later identified as Phytophthora infestans). Within months the mould had spread across Ireland, devastating potato crops. Within a year the Irish potato famine was on.

As Ireland reeled in devastation, the leprechauns hit the road. A simple prank could be forgiven; a 7 year famine tends to raise the bar of national frustration, and led to a banishment of all things imaginary in Ireland.

Being on an island, the road can only go so far. Soon, a little ship was built and the leprechauns set sail. The trade winds blew, the boat rocked, and a hundred years later land was spotted. As the ship washed up on shore the leprechauns knew they had found a new land indeed.

Large wheeled vehicles sped up and down the beach flying bright red flags of stars and bars. The music was loud, electric, and the tune was "Sweet Home Alabama." The new land was called Mobile.

For the leprechauns, life in Mobile has been filled with ups and downs. On the up side, the concern over height discrimination has taken a back seat to weight problems brought on by an new fried diet and the recent mullet fad. On the down side, change doesn't linger on the ground long enough to build up the community pot much. Still, life in the new world has been quiet, relatively uneventful, and relaxing. That is, until…