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At Murphy's Bleachers, a sports bar in the north-side Chicago neighbourhood known as Wrigleyville, a patron is explaining to me the key difference between a “black and tan” and a “half and half” (the former being a pint of Guinness with Bass ale, the latter Guinness with Harp lager). The day after tomorrow is St. Patrick's Day, so I figure this information could come in handy — that is, if I become strangely desirous not to have it “black and black.”

It's a cold March night, the lights that spell out “Welcome to Wrigley Field” are blazing on the stadium wall across Clark Street and, assuming my new friend knows all the Second City's secrets, I ask him what he thinks about the tradition of pumping gallons of green dye into the Chicago River on March 17.

“Don't they do that everywhere?” he replies, which kind of throws me. I further enquire if he thinks the green dye pollutes the river.

“The Chicago River?” he asks incredulously, and then just laughs and laughs.

Chicago, North America's fourth-biggest city, is not the monolithic “stacker of wheat” it once was, but it is still, to me, as Carl Sandburg had it: “coarse and strong and cunning.” I always think of a kind of brash familiarity as Chicago's style: A stranger may swear at you, but in the loving way a brother swears at you for shanking a golf shot. And I have never once met a Chicagoan who boasts of the city's “artisanal bread.”

The Irish are, of course, just one of many nationalities that have shaped the city's character, but Chicago's Irishness is inextricably linked to the city's reputation as the world's hardest-working and most-fun-loving metropolis. Together, these qualities make Chi-town my favourite St. Paddy's destination.

The first Irish immigrants came to Chicago to help build the Illinois and Michigan Canal in the 1830s. The canal would cross the continental divide that separated the St. Lawrence and Mississippi basins, and would physically connect the markets of the South and West to New York. The canal's entrance would become the South Side community of “Hardscrabble,” later renamed Bridgeport. There would be other Irish areas to the north and west, but Bridgeport, like Montreal's Point St. Charles, would long be thought of as the spiritual centre of Chicago's Irish community.

Strolling around quiet, working-class Bridgeport, I notice a few shamrocks festooned here and there. But the community today is proudly diverse, and a local establishment is just as likely to be Italian, Croatian or Mexican as it is Irish. I walk into one of the dowdy neighbourhood joints, not far from the home field of Chicago's other baseball team, the World Series champion White Sox. The South Side, in baseball-crazy Chicago, is White Sox country. Because I'm wearing my trusty Boston Celtics jacket, a patron immediately asks if I'm from Boston. When I say no, the guy pleasantly says, “As long as you're not a Cubs fan.”

Like the Irish of all big North American cities, the community has scattered beyond the original enclosures and into the middle class. To get to the Irish-American Heritage Center, I take the Blue Line of the El — the screechy subway cars that often ride in the middle of the freeways in and out of the city — to Montrose.

Transformed from an old junior college, the centre is a sweet place where Irish-related events, such as this year's Samuel Beckett centenary celebrations, are conducted, and where plays are staged. There's a small museum exhibit, a pub with live music on weekends, and an Irish-themed library impressively stocked with original sheet music to classics like Every Tear is a Smi le in an Irishman's Heart and books translated into Irish Gaelic. I notice a biography of Richard J. Daley, Chicago's great Irish-American mayor whose influence is still felt by the city. So, if you ever need to know what the Irish phrase for “ballot stuffing” or “sorry for the inconvenience” is, you know where to go.

For St. Patrick's Day, however, I want to go to a cultural centre with brass taps and fiddle music. And it is simply impossible to not find a good Irish bar in Chicago. There are fancy places like Casey Moran's (I'm sure if St. Patrick were alive today he'd like the red mood lighting and disco ball). Less-fancy places like the Blarney Stone (which offers “All You Can Drink PBR for $10”). And places that fit somewhere in between, like the Irish Oak (where they serve outrageous pub food including French fries with an Irish bacon and red-cheese mix, a dish that would duly impress a poutine-o-phile). Most of these places incorporate what every good Irish-American bar has: a portrait of JFK above the bar.

Some other favourites of mine include Ginger's Ale House, which has all-you-can-eat fish Fridays and an amiable atmosphere. It's very proud of being voted the best soccer bar in the U.S., and though I am uncertain of the democratic process in best-soccer-bar elections, it's perfect for visitors who just want to hang out.

The Abbey in Irving Park is a self-contained Irish party, where you can start the day with an Irish breakfast and finish it by seeing a contemporary Irish band in the showroom.

I also like the smaller Harrigan's, which hosts a regular karaoke contest. This pleasantly reminds me of something a sour Limerick man once told me: “The worst blight ever to visit Erin's Isle was karaoke.”

Most Irish bars in Chicago boast of making “the best burger in the city.” I will not weigh in on this important matter, except to say I admire the fare at Poag Mahone's, a big bar in the concourse of a skyscraper in The Loop (Chicago's downtown financial centre). Not only are the burgers good, but the kitchen is bold — Poag Mahone's is right next door to the Billy Goat Tavern of Saturday Night Live's “cheeseboyger, cheeseboyger” fame.

Either of these watering holes is an ideal spot to gear up for the St. Patrick's Day parade, which marches through Grant Park on Columbus Drive, its main viewing stand being at the famous Buckingham Fountain.

Over the greened river — a tradition started in the 1960s by the Irish-American leader of a labour union — there's a memorial near the home of Chicago's most misunderstood Irish person: Catherine O'Leary, in whose barn the great Chicago Fire of 1871 started. No one can be sure if an unattended cow in the O'Leary barn kicked over a lantern that started the greatest natural disaster in pre-Katrina America.

So, to recommend Mrs. O'Leary to her rest after the parade, or to toast Chicago, head to Butch McGuire's, one of those enormous booze-barns immortalized in Brat Pack movies like About Last Night.

It was there that I spent my last night in Chicago, almost mesmerized by all the green lights and Celtic Bric-A-Brac. Just before I left, as I stood up to put on my Celtics jacket, my seat was scooped up by a young woman, her hair swept across her forehead in the signature Chicago-land style.

She lit a cigarette — yes, you can still smoke in the town Billy Sunday could not shut down — looked up at all the green lights, and said, “Gaad, it looks like St. Patrick threw up in here.”

Special to The Globe and Mail