Bites Nearby: Irish Food for St. Patrick's Day

Barbara Lennon, the owner of , is busily preparing corned beef to get ready for the onslaught of customers who will be coming in Thursday for her free sandwiches of corned beef on rye. This is a tradition of 34 years at this popular pub. Lennon estimates that they cook 125 pounds of corned beef for the day. Free Irish soda bread is also part of the celebration. The pub will have Irish coffee – a delicious mixture of hot coffee, Irish whiskey and sugar that is topped with heavy cream – for purchase.

Those looking to celebrate the day with a more elaborate meal would do well to visit two other Port pubs: and .

Neill O’Reilly, the owner of Finn MacCool’s, is offering a special menu of typical Irish fare that includes potato leek soup, Irish smoked salmon, corned beef and cabbage, shepherd’s pie (made with organic ground lamb), lamb stew, sausage and mashed potatoes – known as bangers and mash – and fish and chips. For the fish and chips, fresh cod is dipped in a batter of Guiness and other beers before frying.

At Sullivan’s Quay, in addition to most of the items above, owner Brian Barry has a 16-ounce steak with a Jameson whisky sauce on the menu, as well as lamb in Cork county Guiness stew from his mother’s recipe. Two desserts are a Bailey’s lava cake and rice pudding, which is cooked on the stovetop, then baked and served with cinnamon.