All year, community is wild about Harry.

 

As Savannah's premiere Irish folksinger, Harry O'Donoghue often is asked if he makes all his money around St. Patrick's Day.

 

"What do people think I do for the other 11 months?" he said. "Do they think they put me in mothballs along with the green jacket? I'm a working musician. This is a little bit busier than the rest of the year, but really, I'm out there all the time."

 

Born 54 years ago in Drogheda, on Ireland's eastern shore, O'Donoghue was an electrician who strummed a little guitar on the side.

"Seven of us played in a folk band back in the Augustinian Church," he said. "If you had looked at us and were asked to pick out the one who would be a professional musician 30 years on, it wouldn't be me. I was the least talented.

 

"Yet I'm the one who seems to have made a success at it. It's got to do with tenacity, business sense and a connection with people. And luck."

Ah, the luck of the Irish.

 

He and his bandmates made their first journey to America in 1980 - and during a drive across the country, from Pennsylvania to California, O'Donoghue decided this was the place for him.

 

It was six years before he could afford to sell his house and move across the pond. He eventually settled in Chatham County, where a helpful cousin lived. In 1987, he met and married Tracy Smith, a local girl. His full-time musician's salary put their two kids through college.

 

O'Donoghue, a yarn-spinner with twinkling eyes and a charming brogue, travels all over the South. Locally, he's been appearing at Kevin Barry's Irish Pub since 1983. During St. Patrick's time, you'll find him at the Savannah Irish Festival and at the Tara Feis Festival. The Mardi Gras atmosphere of the St. Pat's holiday, he says, is unique to the United States.

 

"They do have a St. Patrick's Day celebration in Dublin, but the party has never gone back across the ocean," he said. "It's still considered more of a holy day. You go to Mass and recognize St. Patrick as the patron saint of the country."

 

Although he visits his native land often - through his Web site, he organizes and leads tour groups from Savannah - O'Donoghue figures his regular job is to conjure up sweet visions of the green country with his voice, guitar and bodhran (Irish drum) for American crowds.

 

"There's something disarming about walking out with an acoustic guitar and your voice and nothing else," he said. "If you can create that intimacy between you and them, it's a shoo-in. It's great fun."

 

He also hosts "The Green Island Radio Show," an Irish music hour, Saturday nights on Georgia Public Radio, playing everything from traditional Irish folk to Van Morrison and the new, slickly produced Celtic sounds of Anuna and Bowfire.

 

"I think the beauty of the Irish folk music is its longevity," O'Donoghue said. "It's got great legs.

 

"Really, you could play a song that sounds traditional, written by me last week, and juxtapose it with something that was written in the '50s. And there's no time frame."

Compiled by Mary Landers, Dana Clark Felty, Jan Skutch and Bill DeYoung.