By AMANDA FARINOS

A friend of mine recently took a trip to Ireland. Enamored with the food, upon her return she began trying out Irish recipes and ended up making beef and Guinness stew for a dinner party in June.

We shared a laugh over this, but when I planned to visit the Town Crier Pub, I had a feeling I, too, was about to eat some unseasonably hearty food. Not so. Most old pub standards like shepherd’s pie weren’t even on the menu.

Town Crier can be classified as a gastropub, a term more recently used to describe not just a pub that includes a restaurant — but one that serves up dishes a foodie really can get excited about. Even the waitstaff was enthusiastic about the menu and beers on tap.

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Apparently, news of Van Morrison’s fatherhood were not as everyone thought.

The 64-year-old singer is denying reports published earlier this week that he had fathered a child with his manager.

Ireland’s state broadcaster RTE posted a statement from this singer on its Web site stating the reports that he was a new father were as a result of a “hacking attack” on his own Web site.
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