It’s been a while since we did an installment of the award-winning Mount Rushmore column, and today happens to be St. Patrick’s Day, so we’re going to honor the great country of Ireland (with one technicality)* and its exports.

There are many ways to go. We could shout out Bono of U2, or the literary great Oscar Wilde. Not Kathy Ireland though, because she’s American. She’s from California. We could show some love to Aran wool sweaters or Riverdance, but there’s only so much room on the Mount Rushmore, so this the brief list, culled from a great many things that the Irish have given us over the years:

 

Thin Lizzy

By far the most underrated rock band of all time. Everybody knows them for “The Boys are Back in Town” and that’s about it, but they consistently put out banger album after banger album and I’d seriously put them right up there with the likes of Deep Purple and The Who and Journey and all of those groups.

Their lead singer, Phil Lynott (RIP), was born in the UK but raised by his grandmother in Dublin, and he played bass and sang while the band featured a very early two-guitar setup, which resulted in some really creative harmonies and leads.


Volume up:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iC6Cgb8nHwk

 

Guinness and Murphy’s

They set up the Guinness and Murphy’s display at the local grocery store a couple of weeks ago. Get your Irish beers at the Weis on route 363.

Can’t go wrong with either one, though the main difference I think is described best by Draftmag.com:

Murphy’s Irish Stout has a smoke barley flavor and some faint chocolate and roast notes regarding the flavor profile. It is a dry stout, and nothing will change.

On the other hand, the Guinness is more watery than Murphy’s but has a fruity flavor. The beer has a stronger yeast character, along with smoky, roasted, and barley notes.

The interesting thing is that if you go over to Ireland, Guinness and Murphy’s taste different over there. They are less watery and have more body, if that makes any sense. Even the American beers taste a little bit different, for example, Miller Lite and Bud Light tasting less like piss water and having a little more substance.

But if you do make it over to Dublin, I recommend touring the Guinness brewery. It’s actually several floors tall and interactive, with spots to pour your own beer and do some other hands-on things, as Tom Cruise experienced:

 

Liam Neeson

“I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don’t have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills. Skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now, that will be the end of it. I will not look for you. I will not pursue you. But if you don’t, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you.”

Just for those lines alone, Neeson gets a spot on the Mount Rushmore.

*As a technicality here, Neeson is actually from Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom, but because Northern Ireland celebrates St. Patrick’s Day, the Crossing Broad selection committee has determined that Neeson is approved for list inclusion. All complaints can be filed with Russell Joy.

 

Irish seafood chowder

Everybody says the food sucks in Ireland and the UK, but I disagree. My take is that the food was either really bad OR really good, like existing on extreme sides of the spectrum, if that makes any sense. For everything that’s terrible, there’s something that’s damn good, and in the latter category we have Irish seafood chowder.

The thing that makes it different from American chowders, like Manhattan or New England clam or any kind of lobster chowder, is that it’s thicker. There’s more of a mix of ingredients and it’s chunky, with potatoes and smoked salmon and cod in there. You can do scallops or crab meat. It’s somewhere between a soup and a stew, almost like one level below a tasty Hungarian Goulash if you add a lot of stuff in there. All of the pubs serve it and it’s awesome, trust me.

 

Honorable mentions: Michael Collins, Oscar Wilde, Bono, wool sweaters, Pierce Brosnan, Enya, Colin Farrell, James Joyce, Conor McGregor even though he hasn’t won a fight in forever, Becky Lynch, Irish Whiskey, the Cliffs of Moher, dry humor