Irish Po-Po

Last night was a golly ol' hoot! Simply must tell you this story.

Jack came up to Chicagoland this weekend to give me a break. I needed a couple of days of sleeping in and not driving. Even though we were flying under the radar, we still wanted to go out Saturday night. We both had a hankering for good beer, mediocre food, and a wonderful atmosphere. So, naturally, we needed an Irish Pub.

After doing some online research, we ended up at Carraig's. We thought it would be cheesy, but ended up having a great time. The beer was great, the food mediocre, and one of my co-workers plopped down next to us (the one with whom I climbed the stairs). After beering and eating, we started wondering if we should go to the Wolfe Tones concert next door (even though we'd never heard much about the Wolfe Tones). I asked for tickets and we scored the last two in the house. So we went next door to the concert for some Irish cheer. The Wolfe Tones band is an old-school, rebel band that talks about the IRA and how much they hate Britain. The place was packed and the drinks were flowing. Oddly, it reminded me of an Irish version of Dyngus Day.

Our table was full of couples in their late 20's or early 30's, save for two guys across the way. The show barely started and they appeared to be having lots of fun already (which is code for, they each had two beers in front of them). After a bit of talking, we discovered they were both Chicago Policemen. They knew where St. Fozzie's is and told some harrowing tales about Fozzie Heights. We clapped along with the show and stomped our feet to the Irish music, but also chatted with these two guys all night. They are huge ND fans.

After the show, the guys invited us back to an Irish bar called Keegan's. No, we normally don't take people up on their invitations to after-parties, but we figured we could trust the cops (we did, however, turn down their offer of a police escort!) Sure enough, this place was great. It's on a whole row of Irish pubs; I know this part of Chicago is very Irish, but the sheer number of Irish pubs surprised me. Keegan's even served my favorite Irish cider on tap, Magners. After having a beer with our new cop friends and hearing all sorts of "real life cop" stories, we eventually returned to my Chicagoland pad to crash.

So while the night began innocently enough with Saturday evening mass, we stumbled across a great Irish pub, attended an Irish rebel band concert, met some new friends on Irish row, and really left our comfort zones!