Category: Irish

AlbuquerqueBar & GrillIrish

Two Fools Tavern – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

Read the table tent placards at the Two Fools Tavern and you’ll learn that this is where the craic is mighty. An old Gaelic term pronounced “crack,”craic refers to the lively essence of the pub experience, a unique and sometimes loud combination of good friends, good times and of course, good pints. Craic is a word for which there is no exact English translation even though there are some 9,000 pubs in the Emerald Isle. In Ireland, pubs, or public houses, are a focal point of the community–as much as the local church. It’s where friends gather for camaraderie and commiseration. The sale and consumption of alcoholic libations is perhaps the pub function with which most Americans are familiar. Most…

AlbuquerqueBrewery-PubDog FriendlyIrishNew Mexico

Quarter Celtic Brewpub – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

In 1913, French mathematician Émile Borel introduced a thought experiment that has come to be known as the infinite monkey theorem. Essentially, the theorem posits that a single monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will eventually type a given text, such as the complete works of William Shakespeare. Espying a sign bearing the name Llanfairpwll-gwyngyllgogerychwyrndrob-wllllantysiliogogogoch when we visited the island of Anglesey in Wales, we wondered if that monkey had been set loose on the sign bearing the village’s name. When Kim asked me to try pronouncing the 58-character name (which actually translates to “Saint Mary’s Church in the hollow of the white hazel near a rapid whirlpool and the Church…

AlbuquerqueDog FriendlyIrish

O’Niell’s Irish Pub – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

Despite several efforts by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to make it more user-friendly, the Food Pyramid has never been that easy to understand. Could confusion be one of the reasons 73.6% of American adults are either overweight or obese (according to the Centers for Disease Control)? Based on that alarming percentage, you’d think the pyramidal nutritional guide has chocolate as its base topped with pizza, burgers and cheesecake tapering to a whipped cream covered point. Perhaps to alleviate confusion, in June, 2011, the USDA replaced the ubiquitous food pyramid with a graphic depiction of a plate which (ostensibly) should make it easier for us to determine if we’re balancing our meals nutritionally. Hopefully the size of the…

Brewery-PubColoradoDog FriendlyIrishUnited States

Shamrock Brewing Co. – Pueblo, Colorado

Gil Garduno

When my friend David Wagner, author of the spell-binding Rick Montoya Italian mysteries, invited us to dinner at the Shamrock Brewing Co. in his hometown of Pueblo, Colorado, I quickly leapt to the conclusion that Shamrock just might be the inspiration for O’Shea’s Irish Pub, the favorite gathering spot for Rick Montoya and other English-speaking expats living in Rome.  I pictured “a decor that could best be described as mid-century modern, that century being the seventeenth” with wood being the dominant feature.  My picture included a “professional tavern owner” with an appropriated name, maybe something like Guido Shamrock, would preside over the place. Shamrock wasn’t much like O’Shea’s.  Thankfully, it wasn’t much like contemporary Irish pubs across the fruited plain…