St. Patrick’s Day in Dublin is a lot like Mardi Gras in New Orleans. Minus the beads, bared breasts and beer consumed on the streets. And the warm weather. And exceptional live music. (The only traditional tunes that my husband Sean and I heard were from a middle-aged man playing a recorder in a hot, packed pub. And he played quite badly.) What wasn’t absent were the enormous crowds and tremendous police presence. After a series of violent fights on St. Patrick’s Day 2004 Dublin now imports about 800 police officers from around the country. On every block we saw 5 to 10 ‘gardai’ in their flourescent yellow jackets, waiting to spring into action. Most often they seemed to give directions to confused and/or drunk tourists. (Tuesday’s papers indicated that they arrested around a dozen car thieves-arsonists who set the stolen autos on fire.) Celebrants there were many. Since Ireland has banned smoking in bars and restaurants, smokers clustered around the front entrances and along the sidewalks. Inside the pubs were wall-to-wall revelers. At one …