“Many people are upset because of his misrepresentations of Limerick, his misrepresentations of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, of the Jesuits and his misrepresentations of his mother,” Crowe says of McCourt. The bar owner denies suffering from what the Irish call “begrudging,” or resentment of another’s success, but critics see something akin to envy in the protest.
Ah, well — fuck the begrudgers, as playwright Brendan Behan said. Let’s go to the other side of the Atlantic, where two of Ireland’s greatest contemporary musicians are at each other’s throats. Musician-slash-priestess Sinéad O’Connor called the cops last November on former Pogues front man Shane McGowan, saying she watched him snort up $800 worth of heroin purchased with money she had loaned him. McGowan, who has been called “Ireland’s greatest living poet” — take that, Seamus Heaney — says he’s not addicted to heroin, only alcohol, “and that’s not against the law.” Alrighty, then, Shane.
Ever since, McGowan has been taking shots at O’Connor on Irish television and in the newspapers, and was quoted as saying that “she’s lost her marbles.” O’Connor, who was ordained as a priest in the Latin Tridentine Church offshoot of Catholicism, is saying daily Mass for her erstwhile friend.
Here in L.A., it looks like the only St. Patrick’s Day drama will be provided by crowds of all ethnicities puking green beer outside crowded local bars — a ritual not observed in Ireland, by the way. The Glendale-based Irish Center of Southern California, however, expects an overflow crowd at a March 11 dinner featuring music from Celtic rockers the Fenians, but there’s a twist — the setting is the Los Angeles Police Academy, a standout venue in these days of the Rampart scandal. We only wish St. Patrick himself would show up and drive a few snakes out of the troubled department. —Bobbi Murray
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