Irish Pub

The Restaurant and the Bar, a 20-year-old West Chester institution and a pioneer in the borough's downtown revitalization, will be sold and converted into an Irish pub, scheduled to open by May. The current owners, Gus and Rosemary Correa, said they were selling the establishment because their son, Carlos, did not want to take it over. Gus Correa, who will continue as owner of the D-K Diner on East Gay Street, would not be specific on the sale price but said it would be more than the $1.6 million he paid for it five years ago. The deal, which is expected to close by the end of January, includes the three-story building and its liquor license, an office, and five apartments.

I WAS GREATLY saddened by the death of former Daily News columnist Jack McKinney. Jack and I helped found the American Friends of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association in Philadelphia in 1969. We were introduced by mutual friend Vince Conlan, a tall, rugged, good-looking Irish patriot who was perhaps best known as the driver for Sean South when that storied Irish patriot was killed during an IRA raid in the 1950s. (Is there an Irish pub anywhere that has not featured the ballad "Sean South of Gary Owen"?

Want to start St. Patrick's Day with a hearty meal, straight from the Emerald Isle? Try an easy recipe from Philadelphia's bona fide Irish pub, the Bards on Walnut at 20th Street. This serious breakfast sandwich requires a rasher (2-3 slices) of lean, flavorful Irish bacon, and a single banger (mild pork and cornmeal sausage). Have one of these in the morning, and you might want to skip lunch. BARDS' IRISH BACON 1 rasher Irish bacon 1 banger 2 teaspoons cooking oil 2 eggs Salt and pepper 1/4 cup mild cheddar cheese, shredded 1 large round roll (the Bards recommends a stirato roll from Le Bus Bakery)

I have yet to find an Irish pub that didn't claim to draw the best pint of Guinness. But the handsome new Black Sheep on South 17th Street may not just be bragging. Over the years, I've heard talk of wooden kegs versus steel, special basement cold rooms, state-of-the-art cooling towers, pure nitrogen infusers, and hotshot bartenders whose stout was so creamy they could sign their names in the foamy head. I had also heard of old-country doctors prescribing pints for iron deficiency.

Editor's note: The following piece appeared in only one edition of The Inquirer on Dec. 17. We thought it was good enough to rerun so more readers could enjoy it. Ten minutes is not enough time to have a pint in an Irish pub. So President Clinton ordered only a half-pint of lager when he stopped in at Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern's regular watering hole in Dundalk, Ireland. Clinton was touring Ireland at an American fast-food pace during the last official visit of his administration.

Ten minutes is not enough time to have a pint in an Irish pub. So President Clinton ordered only a half-pint of lager when he stopped in at Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern's regular watering hole in Dundalk, Ireland. Clinton was touring Ireland at an American fast-food pace during the last official visit of his administration. These days, Ireland is the exception to the justifiable European criticism of the Clinton administration's failings in global negotiations, ranging from the establishment of criminal courts to global warming.

'Tis St. Patrick's Day - a time for the wearing of the green and the drinking of the brown, but you just might have to look a bit harder for it this year in Philadelphia. Several Irish pub owners and even a Brit are boycotting products of the Guinness Bass Import Co., the American arm of Ireland's Guinness brewing company, because of its efforts to encourage the opening of new Irish theme bars. Some have been boycotting for months. More than 10 bars are involved, mostly refusing to serve brews like Harp and Bass, which is distributed here by Guinness.

So you dream of someday owning your own pub. And not just any pub, but a pub in Ireland, the very place that defines pub-ness for the rest of the world (Britain excluded). You dream of doing nothing more strenuous than pulling the silky black Guinness from the tap, leaving you plenty of free time to play rugby and chat up the local colleens, when you aren't partying with your American friends, who come to visit you often, slack-jawed in wonderment at your good luck. Such things really do happen.

The essays must have clinched it, said Trevor O'Driscoll, because, quite frankly, his dart-throwing wasn't too sharp. "I came in second to last on that," said the 22-year-old Montgomery County native who, as of yesterday, is the proud new owner of Finucane's Pub in Listowel, Ireland. He won the pub, the liquor store next door, and the four-bedroom apartment over the bar in what has become an annual contest sponsored by Guinness, the Irish beer company. He is the fifth American in five years to walk away with the keys to an authentic Irish pub because of the contest.

Win your own pub in Ireland! The Guinness contest, now in its fifth year, sounds like a dream come true. Write a short essay romanticizing the wonders of serving stout in Ireland, compete in a few bar games and the winner gets his own pub in some rustic village on a verdant hillside. Sounds like something out of a Daniel Day-Lewis movie. But get past all that clover and lucky-charm stuff, and you've still got yourself a bar. Fistfights and folk music and crabby waitresses and potato soup - you might as well stay home in Kensington and rent "Riverdance.