PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- In the big city, top-level politicians celebrate St. Patrick's Day - out in the open - with a strong dose of humor guaranteed to ruffle feathers and offend at least someone.

Readers of the Boston Globe were treated, for example, to this sampling from South Boston's annual St. Patrick's Day breakfast Tuesday, where "area politicians let off steam by ribbing each other and making light of the country's ills.''

"You know what most Catholics are giving up for Lent this year? Their 401ks," said Bay State Senator Jack Hart, setting the tone for the day.

But that was Boston.

This is Rhode Island where House Speaker William J. Murphy and his host - restaurateur and frequent State House vendor Robert Burke - banned reporters from disclosing what Murphy had to say at what was billed as the fourth annual "Murphy's Law Luncheon.''

The event at Burke's Federal Reserve restaurant drew a reported 200-plus people, many of them lobbyists and state officials paying $50 per person for corned beef and cabbage and Murphy's Irish Stout. A portion of the proceeds was promised to Crossroads Women's Center, but as of today, Crossroads had not been told how much it will get of the $10,000 or so that would have been raised at those prices.

House spokesman Larry Berman referred inquiries to Burke who did not immediately respond to an inquiry.

(Later in the day, Burke's catering company was one of two vendors that supplied lawmakers with heaping plates of food for their annual St. Patrick's and St. Joseph's Day celebrations at the State House. The other was Costantino's, owned by the family of House Finance Chairman Steven Costantino. A House spokesman said Murphy intends to pay the unspecified bill out of his campaign account.)

"One of the hoped for side effects of the event is to lessen the polarization that has become rife in our politics,'' Burke said in a recent exchange of e-mails. He said he imposed the off-the-record rule because he felt a former Journal columnist took a Murphy quip about homosexuals, at an earlier St. Patrick's Day lunch, "out of context... creating an impression of an event that is mean spirited.''

"The phrase 'once burned twice shy applies,' '' he said.

In past years, the lunch provided a showcase for Murphy's humor. In election-year 2006, for example, he said of his top deputy, Majority Leader Gordon Fox, who is gay: "He won't get in trouble because there's not one person in Rhode Island that would ever accuse Gordon of having a comatta." Fox laughed uproariously.

From anecdotal accounts, there was more of the same Tuesday.

A Channel 10 reporter caught the mystery guest - former Massachusetts Senate President William Bulger - on his way inside.

When told the event was off-the-record, Bulger said: "I think that's wrong...It's even more fun if you are saying something outrageous if it gets out there where somebody will react to it...The hide of a rhinoceros, you have to have it,'' he said.
"Can I put a word in here....and urge them to allow the cameras in?'' Bulger said.