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.

Each week, The Baltimore Sun publishes a Q&A with a college lacrosse player or coach to get you more acquainted with the player and his/her team. Today's guest is Notre Dame junior midfielder Jim Marlatt , a Clarksville native and River Hill graduate who leads the team's midfielders in goals with 18 and assists with 10. The Fighting Irish (11-4), who are the second seed in the NCAA tournament, will meet seventh-seeded Duke (13-5) in a quarterfinal Sunday at 2:30 p.m. at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.

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.

Down 7-3 in the fourth quarter, No. 2 Notre Dame put together a 6-0 rally to edge upset-minded Detroit in an NCAA tournament first-round game Saturday, 9-7. Matt Kavanagh, who scored four second-half goals, tied the game at 7 with 10:10 left and then put the Irish (11-4) ahead for good with less than six minutes remaining. The Titans (5-10) were able to keep Notre Dame in check during the first half as Detroit took a 5-1 lead into halftime. Brandon Beauregard led the Titans with three goals.

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.

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.

— 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.

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.

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.

No. 19 Connecticut took a 6-4 lead into halftime and never relinquished it, upsetting No. 7 Notre Dame at home, 10-7, in women's lacrosse Sunday. The Huskies (13-1, 5-1 Big East) won all their home games in a season for the first time in program history. The Fighting Irish (11-3, 5-3) scored just three goals in the second half, two by Lauren Sullivan. Morgan O'Reilly had four goals on senior day to lead UConn, Carly Palmucci added a pair of first-half goals and Lauren Kahn scored her team-leading 32nd goal of the season.

BOSTON -- When Kieran O'Leary took the trip to last year's Boston Marathon, the County Dublin resident met up with several other Irish visitors before the race. "Some of the guys I knew from before from other races -- I'd met a few of them previously," O'Leary said by phone last week. "We met up on race day and traveled out to the start together and then hung around together, waiting for the start. " There were plans to meet up afterward as well. No post-race reunion happened however, because O'Leary found himself in a medical tent, receiving an I.V. drip -- a recovery from one of the hotter Boston Marathons in history.

The No. 6 Notre Dame men's lacrosse team overcame a slow start at home to defeat Big East rival Georgetown, 10-8, on Sunday afternoon. Senior attackman Sean Rogers paced the Fighting Irish offense with two goals and two assists. Notre Dame (9-2, 3-1) fell behind 4-0 by the 6:46 mark of the first quarter but responded with a 6-1 run to claim its first lead of the game early in the third quarter. The Hoyas (5-7, 2-2) became the first team to score five goals in a quarter against Notre Dame since Syracuse on May 1, 2010.

Loyola sophomore Hannah Schmitt stunned No. 5 Notre Dame (10-1, 4-1 Big East Conference) with a sudden-death goal to hand the host Fighting Irish its first loss of the season on Friday, 14-13. In the second overtime period, Notre Dame won the draw but turned the ball over to freshman Annie Thomas. Greyhounds sophomore Sydney Thomas chased down the clear attempt and found Schmitt open on the left wing. Schmitt beat the defense down the field and scored the game-winning goal. No. 20 Loyola (6-6, 3-1)

Jeanine Cummins wants more than anything in the world to give a voice to people who are unable to speak for themselves. In the past, she has spoken for family members. In her 2004 memoir, "A Rip in Heaven," Cummins spoke for her cousins, Julie and Robin Kerry, who were gang-raped and murdered in 1991. She spoke for her older brother, Tom, who also was hurt in that attack on a bridge outside St. Louis. "My cousin, Julie was a really gifted writer," says Cummins, 38, who grew up in Gaithersburg.

The Baltimore Bohemian isn't your usual sports club. The team splits a case of beer at practice, it wins national championships and it plays sports you've probably never heard of. The Baltimore Gaelic Athletic Association, or BGAA, is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. The Bohemian, as the organization is commonly called, is separated into four teams that play traditional Irish sports such as men's and women's Gaelic football, camogie and hurling. But while that sounds like a league for displaced Irishmen - and it is to an extent - the Baltimore team is predominantly made up of people trying the games for the first time.

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.

Kudos to Dan Rodricks for his article celebrating St. Patrick's Day ("Why we love all things Irish this week," March 12). I have been a Sun subscriber for more than 40 years and this is one of the 10 best articles I have seen during that time. I am still a member of the Emerald Owl (Isle) Club and a survivor of the Irish weekend warriors of St. Patrick's Cemetery. One of the principal reasons why the cemetery was in disarray was that many of the Irish built 6-inch-high iron fences around their graves and this prevented mechanical grass cutting.

A recipe for Irish boxty, courtesy of Slainte chef Chris Marquis: 1 1/2  cups grated raw potato 1 cup  flour 1 cup leftover mashed potatoes 1 egg 1 Tablespoon skim milk olive oil salt and pepper Toss the grated potatoes with flour in a large bowl. Stir in mashed potatoes until combined. In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg and skim milk; mix into the potatoes. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat.