Irish eyes are smiling this year because St. Patrick’s Day falls on a Saturday. That makes it easy to catch Maher’s annual St. Patrick’s Day Festival which kicks off at 352 B Avenue on Friday, March 16 at 12:00 p.m.  and runs through Saturday, March 17 until the last person leaves the bar.

So whether you are 99.3% Irish like me or just enough to claim heritage one day a year, here are some fun facts to help you celebrate in Lake Oswego.

1. The An Daire Academy of Irish Dance will be performing at Maher’s on Friday from 5:00 p.m. to 5:20 p.m. and Saturday from 5:30 p.m. to 5:50 p.m.
2. You don’t have to feel bad about celebrating St. Patrick’s Day if you’re not Irish. Turns out even St. Patrick wasn’t! He was born in Britain but captured by Irish pirates when he was 16 and sold into slavery. After escaping six years later he entered a monastery, eventually returning to Ireland to convert them to Christianity.
3. Maher’s festival is family friendly earlier in the day with Irish dancers and bagpipes, but after that, it becomes an adults-only event.
4. They say the Irish have the gift of blarney which may explain why legend has it that St. Patrick drove the snakes from Ireland even though biologists doubt snakes ever lived there because of the cool temperatures. Could have been a more colorful way of describing how he drove out the pagan religious customs and beliefs that preceded him.
5. The legend lives on at Maher’s where they’ll be serving up Snakebite on their Import Draught menu (Magners/Guinness) as well as Dancing Leprechauns (Paddy’s whiskey, fresh muddled lemon, soda and ginger ale), Jameson Moscow Mules, Irish Coffees, Whiskey flights and a long lineup of beverages to toast the occasion with.
6. St. Patrick’s Day was actually a dry holiday in Ireland until 1970. Before that it was deemed a religious holiday so pubs were closed. Wonder if Guinness lobbied for it to be reclassified as a national holiday which it was in 1970, opening up the bars to serve up part of the 13 million pints downed by revelers.
7. We have the Irish to thank for many things (including me, my wife would say) but one of the best is Irish stew—the ultimate comfort food—that even poor families could improvise with during lean times.
8. You can order yourself a bowl of it at Maher’s accompanied by Irish soda bread. Other Irish staples include bangers and mash and shepherd’s pie.
9. You’ve likely heard of the St. Patrick’s Day parade in New York City (which as it turns out is older than the United States itself, dating back to 1762). But have you heard about the shortest St. Patrick’s Day parade? Several cities try to lay claim to it, but seems the original started in Dripsey, County Cork and ran from one pub to another, just 25 yards. West Boylston, Massachusetts tried to challenge that with a “parade” between two pubs (Finders and Keepers) separated by a driveway. Seems Hot Springs, Arkansas and Boulder, Colorado also have parades in the race to be called “the shortest.”
10. Perhaps Lake Oswego could try entering the fray here with a pub crawl—strike that—“parade” from the B Avenue entrance at Maher’s to the outdoor patio in back. Sounds like anything is game!

Let me put the luck o’ the Irish to work for you if you’re considering moving to Lake Oswego or if you’re already here and just want to move up or out! Give me a call at 503.939.9801 or check out my website. I’ve been a Realtor in Lake Oswego for over 25 years and would to put my experience into making your home buying or selling transaction a smooth one.