Irish

Washington is going green today. The 36th annual St. Patrick's Day Parade kicks off at noon in the district. Starting at Constitution Avenue and Seventh Street Northwest, the parade proceeds down Constitution Avenue to 17th Street. About 20,000 spectators are expected to watch as more than 100 marching bands, bagpipe bands, floats, Irish dance groups, mounted units, Irish-American community organizations and other groups march down the route. This year's parade theme is "Volunteers Weave Communities Together."

Much has been written about "Charming Billy," by Alice McDermott (Farrar Straus, 280 pages, $22). On these pages a year ago, Chris Kridler hailed it for the "exquisitely detailed observations" that constitute "a delicately assembled and wistful scrapbook ... [that] unravels the emotional legacy passed from one generation to the next." Nearly a year later came its nomination, then selection, for the National Book Award for fiction. Much more was written. Yet I had not read it.Now I have, and enjoyed it immensely.

WHEN IRISHMAN Seamus Kennedy arrived in America 28 years ago, he came for the football -- Gaelic football, that is -- and hurling for New York City's Gaelic Athletic Association.The singing came afterward, first in celebrations after games and now as an entertainer, but always true to his roots.Kennedy, an Arnold resident, will star in a Celtic Christmas program Dec. 17 at the Avalon Theatre in Easton. It is billed as a holiday gift for the entire family, an evening of music, dance and humor from Scotland and Ireland blended with contemporary and traditional American holiday music.

Columbia will be the stage for the all-world, all-Ireland and all-world junior step-dancing champions Friday at the Evening of Irish Music and Poetry.The Howard County Poetry and Literature Society (HoCoPoLitSo) is sponsoring the 21st annual event at 8 p.m. at the Jim Rouse Theatre for the Performing Arts at Wilde Lake High School.Paul Cusick, the all-world champion, was the first American male to win the all-Ireland championship, the oldest Irish dance competition on record.Last month, Patrick "Paddy" Quinn captured the all-Ireland title, and Michael Belvitch garnered the all-world championship title in the junior division.

CONG, Ireland -- They come from as far away as Japan, Estonia and, of course, the United States. On foot or by bike, in cars or in giant tour buses that fill the shoulderless roads outside the village and the narrow streets within.Last month alone, 20,000 people stopped in this village of 250 residents -- and the grind of heavy machinery greets each workday as crews struggle to widen the main thoroughfare from the north.Cong, whose Irish name Conga means "narrow place," sits on a horizontal strip of land separating the trout-filled Mask and Corrib lakes.

BERNARD MacLaverty, a writer from Northern Ireland, tells the story of a Belfast man who goes out one evening to walk his dog. Within minutes, the man is abducted by two men, forced at gunpoint into their car and driven through the streets of Belfast.Without revealing their sectarian affiliation, the terrorists demand that the man answer a series of questions: What is his name? What school did he go to? What church does he attend? Where does he work? They even demand that he recite the alphabet.

Slavery made Patrick a saint.He didn't drive the snakes out of Ireland, and there is no way to know whether he used the three-leaf shamrock to teach the doctrine of the Trinity. But there is more solid history to Patrick's legend than to those of other holiday saints, such as Valentine and Nicholas.Patrick, or Patricius, apparently came from a family of Romanized Britons; his father was a minor official and his grandfather a Roman Catholic priest.Rome still nominally ruled Britain, but the empire was disintegrating and no longer offered security from barbarian raids.

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- This one slashed to the very core of the Navy football team.On the brink of exorcising the ghosts of many losses past, the Midshipmen again fell victim to their haunting misfortunes of 1999 yesterday and dropped their 36th consecutive game to Notre Dame, 28-24, before 80,012 sun-splashed fans at Notre Dame Stadium.Navy (2-6) has been accustomed to narrow defeats this season -- this was its fifth by six or fewer points -- but the latest was especially heartbreaking because of the opposition and because of a controversial measurement with 1: 20 remaining that could have iced the Irish for good.

BELFAST, Northern Ireland -- To keep the peace, Northern Ireland Secretary Mo Mowlam went to jail yesterday.She ventured into the concrete jungle of the notorious Maze prison -- home to more than 500 terrorists and killers -- and persuaded Protestant guerrillas in the prison to allow their political representatives to attend all-party talks due to resume Monday.Mowlam gambled her political career and the future of an embattled community on an extraordinary jailhouse summit that brought Northern Ireland back from the brink of renewed violence.

No intercollegiate football series has been more one-sided than Notre Dame vs. Navy, a rivalry that began in 1927 and continues 3: 30 this afternoon at Jack Kent Cooke Stadium.The Fighting Irish hold a 61-9-1 lead and have won the past 34 since 1963, when Roger Staubach won the Heisman Trophy and led the Midshipmen to the Cotton Bowl.Notre Dame has dominated the series with its superior talent, speed and size. But sometimes, as in last November's 21-17 scare in South Bend, you get the feeling that even the leprechauns are working on behalf of the Irish.

Irish stout, like a leprechaun, can fool you. It looks dark and stark, but is actually light, friendly and refreshing. As Garrett Oliver points out in his book The Brewmaster's Table, the alcohol content of Irish stout is usually below 5 percent by volume, and that is lower than the typical American lager. Roasted barley and malts give the stout its rich, black color. Cans of stout now come equipped with a rattling widget that, when the can is popped open, helps dissolved nitrogen bubbles form the classic creamy head.

James A. Jones, a retired Maryland State Police lieutenant colonel who was an early advocate of alcohol and drug testing to reduce highway accidents, died of an embolism Dec. 19 at his Perry Hall home. He was 78. Born in Baltimore and raised in Overlea, he was a 1948 Calvert Hall College High School graduate. He joined the Navy and became an aviation electrician aboard an aircraft carrier. Among other decorations, he received the Korean Service Medal with two battle stars. He joined the Maryland State Police in 1957 and was stationed at Waldorf, Upper Marlboro, Bel Air and Golden Ring, before moving on to the state police headquarters in Pikesville.

PATRICK HILLERY, 84 Former president of Ireland Former Irish President Patrick Hillery died yesterday and will receive a full state funeral, the government announced. Mr. Hillery died in a Dublin hospice after a short, undisclosed illness, the government said. As foreign minister, Mr. Hillery negotiated Ireland's 1973 entry into the future European Union. He served two terms as president, Ireland's symbolic head of state, and ran unopposed both times - an unprecedented concession that reflected his cross-party popularity.

College Basketball Pittsburgh @No. 21 Notre Dame 7 P.M. [ESPN] The Irish (19-5, 9-3) have won six of their past seven games and are hanging near the top of the Big East. Pittsburgh, after opening the season 11-0, has been struggling. The Panthers (19-6, 7-5) had been trying to get along without guard Levance Fields, who missed 12 games with a foot injury. In Fields' first game back, Pittsburgh lost to Marquette by 18 points last week.

Tuesday marked the historic restoration of power-sharing between Catholics and Protestants, Irish republicans and British loyalists in Northern Ireland - and the beginning of a new set of difficult challenges, including how to remember the bloody past. "It is recognized that victims have a right to remember," stated the 1998 Belfast Agreement, which provided the framework for the restoration of local government. It's a little shocking to read this principle enshrined in the cold print of an official document.

Longtime foes in Northern Ireland promised a new beginning yesterday, the very day that - no less remarkably - Martin O'Malley was to dine with Queen Elizabeth II. On both sides of the Atlantic, seems everybody was leaving The Troubles behind. If Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionist Party can make nice, why shouldn't the governor of Maryland (and about 120 others invited to the British ambassador's residence) break bread with Her Britannic Majesty? Let bygones be bygones, including that little dust-up with the British Embassy in 1993, when then-City Councilman O'Malley compared Her Majesty's troops to the Klan.

BELFAST, Northern Ireland -- A militant Free Presbyterian preacher and a former leader of the Irish Republican Army were sworn in as the joint heads of a new government in Northern Ireland yesterday in a move to conclude more than 30 years of conflict between Protestants loyal to Britain and Catholics who fought for a united Ireland. The two still-suspicious new government leaders did not single out each other in the giddy handshakes shared among the new Northern Irish officials. But as the Rev. Ian Paisley of the Democratic Unionist Party and Martin McGuinness of Sinn Fein took their oaths, both sides hailed the day as the final end of the Troubles that took more than 3,500 lives between 1969 and 2001.

Washington is going green today. The 36th annual St. Patrick's Day Parade kicks off at noon in the district. Starting at Constitution Avenue and Seventh Street Northwest, the parade proceeds down Constitution Avenue to 17th Street. About 20,000 spectators are expected to watch as more than 100 marching bands, bagpipe bands, floats, Irish dance groups, mounted units, Irish-American community organizations and other groups march down the route. This year's parade theme is "Volunteers Weave Communities Together."

Baltimore Circuit Court Judge Thomas Ward says he is "98 percent" recovered from his recent bout with a neurological disorder, Guillain-Barre syndrome. At age 80, he'll be back on the bench next month. Although technically retired, he also has a 1,600-acre cattle and timber farm that spreads out along the Cheat River in West Virginia to keep him busy, as well as his daily Baltimore walks, which take him from his Bolton Hill home to Pennsylvania Station, where he likes to watch the city's ever-increasing passenger train traffic pass.

DUBLIN, IRELAND -- Irish authorities launched an inquiry yesterday into the sudden and violent illness of former Russian Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar, whose aides say might have been the victim of poisoning. Gaidar's illness while attending a conference in Ireland on Nov. 24 appeared to deepen the mystery surrounding the poisoning death a day earlier of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko in London, although there was no immediate indication from investigators that the cases were linked.