Irish

The unseeded Notre Dame men's lacrosse team is coming to Baltimore next weekend for the Final Four. The Fighting Irish knocked off No. 3 overall seed Maryland 7-5 today in the NCAA men's lacrosse tournament quarterfinals in Princeton, N.J. Notre Dame (9-6) took down No. 6 seed Princeton last weekend in the first round. The Fighting Irish grabbed a 5-1 first-half lead on the Terps (12-4) and never looked back in reaching its first Final Four since 2001. Sean Rogers scored three goals for the Fighting Irish and goaltender Scott Rodgers shut down Maryland's offense today in securing the victory.

Loyola attackmen Eric Lusby and Mike Sawyer have seen a lot of different zones and man-to-man defensive combinations this season. Fairfield tried to match up with them by using two short-stick midfielders. And last Saturday, Denver played a zone that shut off Sawyer, but Lubsy blew up the Pioneers for five goals in Loyola's 10-9 NCAA quarterfinal win at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium. Next up for the No. 1-seeded Greyhounds is No. 4 seed Notre Dame on Saturday in the semi-finals at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass.

The Loyola Greyhounds did so many things right Saturday against Notre Dame in the Konica Minolta Face-Off Classic. They took away easy scoring opportunities from the Fighting Irish, they forced them to shoot with a weak hand more often than not, they counterpunched when Notre Dame had all the momentum, and they frustrated and hounded midfielder Zach Brenneman, one of the best players in the country. But superior talent has a habit of wiping away both the sins and the sloppy play of the victor, and that's exactly what happened at M&T Bank Stadium.

Loyola will enjoy its first berth in the Final Four since 1998, but an unenviable task awaits the top-seeded Greyhounds (16-1) when they meet No. 4 seed Notre Dame in an NCAA tournament semifinal on Saturday at 2:30 p.m. at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass. The offense will try to become only the third opponent this season to decipher the Fighting Irish's bewildering defense, a unit so fundamentally sound that it has allowed only one team to reach double digits in goals this spring.

Green will be everywhere today - on shirts, on faces, and yes, in beer. Though the parade might be over, there are still plenty of St. Patrick's Day events happening today and this weekend. Here are five Irish-themed options, including a "green" wine tasting and a Celtic concert starring our very own governor. Slainte ! Pub crawling for charity Four South Baltimore bars - Don't Know Tavern, The Rowan Tree, Taps and No Idea Tavern - team up to raise money for a neighborhood elementary school.

— With nearly three minutes left in the game, Maryland attackman Ryan Young had a clear look at the goal from about 12 yards away, and instead of scoring a goal that would have brought the Terps within one, he clanged a shot off the pipe. Again. And it was like that for the Terrapins most of the afternoon Saturday. And if they weren't hitting goal posts, they were either making bad passes or simply dropping them. On a day when Maryland's offense had to be good, the attack was awful as unseeded Notre Dame upset No. 3 seed Maryland, 7-5, in an NCAA Division I men's quarterfinal at Princeton University.

The great thing about the World Cup of Soccer to be played in this country next summer is that perennial power England did not qualify. Its legion of hooligan fans, who travel only to start riots, will not come. The U.S. is self-sufficient in riots, thank you, with no need to import any.Nor will soccer-mad Scotland, Northern Ireland or Wales come. They also failed to qualify. The United Kingdom has more national soccer teams (four) than the old Soviet Union had votes in the U.N. (three).But Ireland, a country with hardly any soccer tradition, will come with a strong team.

The day was March 17. My Grandfather Edward Jacques Monaghan dressed in his best suit, whitest shirt, vest, Hamilton 28-jewel pocket watch, gold chain and diamond fob.He then went off to church and maybe to a luncheon given by one of the city's Irish-American associations. But mostly, St. Patrick's Day in the late 1950s was a time for this gregarious man in his 70s to celebrate and tell stories with his old friends, of which he had plenty.To a gentleman whose beautiful handwriting was always executed in green fountain pen ink, the Irish holiday was a special time -- a day for sharing Cuban cigars and Maryland rye whiskey with his friends.

Tours of Rockwood Museum in Wilmington, Del., during March will emphasize the mansion's Irish connection. The Bringhurst family, which occupied the 19th century country estate around the turn of the century, had ties with Ireland, and many of their servants were born there.In 1899, a St. Patrick's Day party held at the mansion made headlines in the society pages of the Wilmington papers. Next month the mansion will be decorated to appear as it might have looked during the event.Tours of Rockwood are available Tuesdays to Saturdays between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. Each Saturday in Maarch, Victorian teas will be held at 1 p.m. and 2:30 p.m. following the tours.

I FIRST interviewed John Hume over a quarter-century ago, as he lay down for the night outside 10 Downing Street to protest British policy on Northern Ireland.He was a Northern Ireland legislator and civil-rights leader. His cause then was justice for the minority, not ending British rule. Yet his detractors assured me he was as Green underneath as Nationalist rivals he supplanted, which proved accurate.John Hume has long led the Social Democratic and Labor Party '' which wins the most votes from the Roman Catholic and Nationalist minority people of Northern Ireland.

• On a Notre Dame men's lacrosse team where everyone contributes, Clarksville's Jim Marlatt has grabbed the spotlight. The River Hill grad had a career-high five-point day in the NCAA first-round win over Yale. But it's depth that has been the key: 19 different players have hit the back of the net for the Irish, who play Virginia on Sunday in the NCAA quarterfinals. "We're just looking for the opening guy and whoever that guys is at the end of the play is going to get the goal," said Marlatt, a 2012 Big East Conference first-team honoree.

Steele Stanwick (Loyola High) fed fellow senior attackman Chris Bocklet for a fourth-quarter goal that proved to be the difference as No. 5 seed Virginia outlasted visiting Princeton, 6-5, Sunday afternoon in NCAA tournament first-round game. The six goals were the fewest the Cavaliers (12-3) had ever scored in an NCAA tournament win, and the 11 total goals tied for the fifth-fewest ever in a tournament game. Bocklet and senior midfielder Colin Briggs led Virginia with two goals apiece, while Stanwick - one of five finalists for the Tewaaraton Award, given to the top college player - added an assist.

Loyola's 10-9 overtime loss to Johns Hopkins Saturday opened the door for Notre Dame to move into the top spot in RPI (ratings percentage index). In the third version of the list released by the NCAA Monday evening, the Fighting Irish (11-1) jumped from third to first in RPI, which uses a formula of compiling a team's winning percentage, that squad's opponents' winning percentage and the team's opponents' opponents' winning percentage. Notre Dame is ranked second in the latest Sun rankings.

The Loyola women's lacrosse team's performance on the draw Sunday against undefeated Notre Dame mirrored its season so far: struggling early and dominating late. After winning just two first-half draws, the No. 18 Greyhounds controlled 11 of 17 in the second half to build a nine-goal lead en route to a 17-11 Big East Conference victory over the No. 6 Irish at Loyola's Ridley Athletic Complex. The Greyhounds won 10 of the first 13 second-half draws and that helped them boost a 9-8 lead with 23 minutes left to 17-8 after Marlee Paton earned her career-high fourth assist on Annie Thomas' goal with 5:13 left.

— The Notre Dame women's basketball team sent a quick message to its wannabe Cinderella opponent in Sunday's NCAA tournament game at PNC Arena: Glass slippers are for fairy tales, not for the Sweet 16. The top-seeded Irish bullied their way through ball screens on defense, holding St.Bonaventure's leading scorer without a point and leaving the rest of the Bonnies — including their coach, Jim Crowley — hopeless in a 79-35 victory. The win sent Notre Dame (33-3) into Tuesday's regional final against second-seeded Maryland (31-4)

At opposite ends of their college basketball careers, Notre Dame fifth-year senior guard Brittany Mallory and Maryland freshman guard Brene Moseley view Tuesday night's NCAA tournament regional final at PNC Arena through much different eyes. Mallory is looking for top-seeded Notre Dame (33-3) to erase the disappointment of last season's NCAA championship game defeat to Texas A&M in Indianapolis. Moseley is hoping to get second-seeded Maryland (31-4) back to the Final Four for the first time since the Terps won the title in 2006.

BELFAST, Northern Ireland -- The Rev. Ian R. K. Paisley rises in his pulpit like Captain Ahab in the bow of a whaling boat, a harsh, obsessive, blackclad figure wielding his Bible like a harpoon.His Moby Dick is unification of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The Irish Republican Army is for him the incarnation of evil, the pope in Rome the Antichrist.He sees treachery, betrayal and surrender everywhere. He is the implacable foe of compromise to whom great majorities of Protestant, pro-British Ulstermen have turned in past times of crisis.

When Tadgh Prendeville moved from his native Ireland to Baltimore for work more than a decade ago, he couldn't play Gaelic football without going to Washington. The same was true for Lucy Clerkin in her pursuit to play camogie, or hurling for women, which the Maryland native learned while visiting her grandmother in Ireland. Eventually, Prendeville and Clerkin found themselves commuting together to Washington for weeknight practices and weekend games as members of the Washington Gaels.

Our friends from the Classic Catering People sent over a couple of St. Patrick's Dayrecipes. If you can't make it out on Saturday, you can turn your home into an Irish pub . Corned Beef Barley and Cabbage Soup Chef Donald Martin The Classic Catering People Ingredients 1 1/4 pounds corned beef brisket, cut into bite size cubes 4 quarts chicken stock 1/2 cup barley 2 onions, diced small 2 celery Stalks, ½...