My two favorite Irish stories...

...are from Frank McCourt's musical, "The Irish...and How They Got That Way."

McCourt, who died last year at age 78, said the Irish originally immigrated to the United States because "We were told that the streets were paved with gold." When the Irish arrived, however, "we found out that not only were the streets not paved with gold, they weren't paved at all. And what's more, we were the ones expected to do the paving!"

The other anecdote involved a wealthy Boston Brahmin woman who admonished her Irish cleaning lady by saying, "Rosemary, the dust on this highboy is so thick I can write my name on it." To which the immigrant responded, "Ah, 'tis a grand thing to be educated!"