Ireland’s greatest cultural contribution has been its music. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that races of people who suffered loss of control over their native soil, imperialism, racism, and hostile treatment in foreign lands end up producing the world’s most beautiful music. Jews, African Americans, and the Irish always spring to mind as people who took the incredibly lousy hand they were dealt and spun it into dark humor and superior music. It’s no mystery to me that the greatest stars of the Harlem Renaissance were musicians of mixed Irish and African descent who routinely collaborated with Jewish artists.

Ireland gets romanticized a lot, especially by Irish Americans, but if you’ve ever been there you know it’s cold, windy, wet, and a bit of a dump. Rocks and cows outnumber people a million to one. The cities aren’t much to look at. Dublin looks like a post-Soviet pile of bricks. Limerick makes Pocatello, Idaho look like New York City, and Galway smells like sewer and low tide. The small towns pretty much all look the same, and every tourist attraction consists of something made out of rocks. It’s been picked on by Britain for half a milennium, it’s been an economic backwater for centuries, and it’s literally the red-headed stepchild of Europe.

Somehow, though, Ireland more than compensates for all of this with genuinely warm hospitality and a never-ending font of inspired music. It’s the only country on the planet that uses a musical instrument (the harp) as its national emblem, and the only one that puts up signs everywhere reading “a hundred thousand welcomes.”

With all this in mind, the pressure is on to pick just the right stuff for your St. Patrick’s Day party. Unless you’re hosting a party for diehard folk purists, straight traditional music will be dull. Put on an album of New Agey Loreena McKennitt clones and you won’t need booze to make your guests sleepy. Enya and Riverdance did a lot to encourage the explosion of new interpretations of traditional Celtic music, but the average St. Patty’s party is really just another excuse to get together with friends, so something listenable that will blend with other party favorites is what we need. For a playlist with an Irish flair that isn’t more cliché than a box of Lucky Charms, here’s a handy guide to get you started.

St. Patrick’s Day Party Playlist

• “Anything Goes With the Drunken Gouger” by Sliotar, Cirque de Sliotar
• “Medley: The Recruiting Sergeant/The Rocky Road to Dublin/Galway Races” by The Pogues, If I Should Fall From Grace With God
• “The Worst Day Since Yesterday” by Flogging Molly, Swagger
• “Byker Hill” by The Cottars, Forerunner
• “Rambing Irishman” by Oysterband, Trawler
• “Green Fields of France” by Dropkick Murphys, The Warrior’s Code
• “South Australia” by The Pogues, If I Should Fall From Grace With God
• “Black Velvet Band” by Dropkick Murphys, Blackout
• “Matty Groves” by Fairport Convention, Liege and Lief
• “Valley of the Shadow of Death” by The Tossers, Valley of the Shadow of Death

From here you can fine-tune to your tastes. Having a rowdy bash with a bunch of metalheads? Load up on The Tossers, Dropkick Murphys, and Flogging Molly, and mix it up with Motörhead and Judas Priest. If a mellower gathering is more your thing, swing toward Fairport Convention, Sliotar, and Oysterband.