“On Ó Flaithbheartaigh’s Bar”
or
“the only Minor Shakespearean Sex Comedy to Come Out of Hurricane Katrina”
My name is Hedge Monaghan. I tended bar the last night that Ó Flaithbheartaigh’s was open for business before the unnecessary cruelties of Hurricane Katrina and her long lingering aftermath befell us. Ó Flaithbheartaigh’s wasn’t an ersatz bar. It was a legit Irish bar. Ó Flaithbheartaigh’s was authentic.
This is that story of those last nights.
This is a true story. The names have been beatified to resurrect the innocent and obfuscate the malevolent. (And don’t mess with nothing in between.) Except for the musicians. They were public figures. They were there and there’s no sense wasting caloric energy masking the outsized talent and personalities of French Quarter Musicians.
______
My people are descendants
of that ancient Gael Warrior Bard,
Padraig Plaisteach
who fearless sailed his way to Amerikay
in the hastily fashioned skin of an overly large potato.
His quick seamanship and razor sharp oratorical skills
defeated waves of leviathan and siren.
Finally three days later,
he arrived safely in La Puerta de Nueva Orleanzeva,
from whence he quickly profligated atop the New World,
becoming simultaneously the good guy and the bad guy,
JFK AND McCoughlinCarthy
Why did I find myself tending bar at the mouth of the Mississippi at the greatest Irish bar in the history of the American South waiting for the worst hurricane in American history to come blowing in?
WHY?
Why — I can only suppose that The Lord truly knows the answer to that.
HOW?
How I found myself there, that I can tell you -
The North Texas Irish Festival.
