THE O'MALLEY CLAN'S ANNUAL ST. PATRICK'S DAY -PARTY wasn't always so nuts. It took a generation or two for it to transform from a starched-shirt, hands-folded, cake-and-Irish-coffee affair to the kind of blow-out where Dennis Maloney would snap his Achilles tendon doing the Irish jig and Robert Gottstein would get turned into a snake. Friday's was a milestone, the party's 60th year. It was also the "O'Malley Finale," as the family called it. That's because if Barbara O'Malley really means what she's been saying, this one was the last. It's been a blast but it's just become too much. Heaps of people pitch in to pull this bash off. All but precious few of those 60 parties have gone on in the old O'Malley house, the house Barbara has lived in since she was born. The house her parents kept adding on to, a room here, a closet there, as they expanded their family to the tune of nine kids in 13 years in the '40s and '50s. Now that those nine O'Malleys are more than a little grown up and have kids of their own, they call the place "The Big House." And the Big House is tired. Because of calling it curtains, all nine who grew up in that house converged from points north and south to be there, driving down from Wasilla and Fairbanks, flying up from Cleveland and Seattle. This was the first time they've all been together on St. Patrick's Day since way back when they were kids. They invited their friends and their kids invited theirs. And those friends invited friends. "A friend of the O'Malleys is a friend of ours," as the family saying goes. And then Tommy O'Malley opened up the phone book and invited friends he didn't even know -- all the other O'Malleys in the book who aren't somehow related. These wing-dings were already known for packing folks in like cordwood. Friday's finale had such a gridlock going, if it weren't for the band, you could have heard that big house groan. "I don't know how the house takes it," said Dr. Thomas Green, who turned 70 on St. Patrick's Day and has been attending these O'Malley gigs for years. Dennis Maloney, who went to his first as a kid, gave Barbara and the house a break for a couple of years by moving the party to his place. "When you wanted some bread," he said, "you had to pass the loaf hand-over-hand because nobody could move."  The O'Malleys are known for other great gatherings, too, including solstice parties that grew so unwieldy, they were moved to the 4th Avenue Theatre and Spenard's Garden of Eatin' a couple of times. None, though, had the stamina of this one, where you were as likely to run into a former governor as the kid who mows your lawn. Or your kindergarten teacher from eons ago. Or the anesthesiologist from the surgery you had a while back. To get beyond the front door one first had to negotiate a formidable mote of disembodied shoes. That pile has caused problems at parties past. One year one of the brothers, Dr. James O'Malley, got called into the emergency room mid-party. He went to leave, started digging and discovered someone had taken off in his shoes. "So he borrowed my brother Tom's," Barbara said, "which were these rubber leprechaun shoes, you know, with curled toes." Somehow, knowing this family, it didn't strike anyone as all that odd.

With a name like O'Malley, there's almost an obligation to party 'til you're green on St. Patrick's Day. The family name comes from Ireland's County Mayo, in the province of Connacht. And there's a legendary pirate queen in the bloodline a few centuries back -- Grainne Mhaol in Gaelic, Grace O'Malley in English -- which explains why the O'Malleys are full of grace, as the saying goes.

The O'Malleys' St. Patrick's Day party launched soon after Doc and his wife, Dr. Virginia Wright, arrived in Anchorage at the end of World War II. In 1946, they moved into what was then the-not-so-big house on 10th Avenue, back when C Street was dirt. Although the house wasn't on the edge of town, you could see it from there. Virginia was a family practitioner, too, and later became the first board-certified psychiatrist in Alaska and a co-founder of the local and state mental health associations. Doc opened a practice on Fourth Avenue, moving later to what's now Wings 'n Things on I Street.

In addition to his own nine, kids from all over the neighborhood were constantly running in and out of that house. Dennis Maloney, now an attorney, was among them. As did others, he hung around so much he got absorbed into the family.  "Virginia once told me I could have any of her daughters," he said. "I think she meant to marry." The O'Malleys had this way of making everyone feel welcome. And there was always room at the dinner table. The more the merrier.  "They always set an extra plate at the table for the 'stranger at the gate.'" Maloney said. "That was an O'Malley tradition." 

Doc O'Malley lore extends to the road that bears his name. As the various versions go, he delivered a baby for the wife of a surveyor who named the road after him in gratitude. Then there was the one about the contractor Doc saved from death by appendicitis who was so grateful he gave the road that name.

"In the Egan Convention Center there's an O'Malley Room," Tommy said. "They use it for storing desks and stuff."  Doc had friends everywhere. When he died only a month after retiring in 1974, his wake went on for a week. Michael Pavich, who Virginia sometimes called her 10th child, grew up down the street and remembers vividly that wake more than 30 years ago. "People from every walk of life -- from government officials to movers and shakers to school janitors -- came by the house," he said.  "And we went through a case and a half of Irish whiskey that week," said Tommy.

The St. Patrick's Day party tradition that Doc and Virginia started bears no resemblance to what it became. For starters, it was always on Sundays. Virginia, who died in 1981, would bring out a starched, Irish linen tablecloth -- "no holes, no stains" -- as Barbara recalls, and lovingly set upon it a devil's food cake with white frosting stenciled with shamrocks. And always there were green mints. "These people would show up, mostly doctors and their wives," Barbara said. "The women were dressed to the hilt, with hats on, seamed nylons and gloves." The men would cluster in the kitchen around the Irish coffee fixings. The women would sit in the living room with hands folded in their laps. "It was very proper," Barbara said. "Very uneventful." "When did it go wild?" Tommy said. "I think in the '70s when the kids started taking over." These weren't dull kids, it's safe to say. Among contributions they made to the party were the little plays they'd conjure up and perform with friends. And not just for St. Patrick's Day.

"Bob Goes to Miami" was a short movie starring Bob the cat (given to the O'Malleys by Tony Knowles), about big oil, big money and big drugs, with a sword fight on 4th Avenue and a train bearing down on the heroine. Bob figured into a couple of these O'Malley productions. For St. Patrick's Day, it was "Bob Kisses the Blarney Stone." The then there was the bit about Irish contributions to world history.

"When I called him up and told him we were getting the gang back together for this, he said, 'Sure. And what was it that we did?' "Nobody could remember," Tommy said. There was a lot more Irish whiskey and so forth involved back in those days. "That's probably why I can't remember it," Tommy said. "I'm much better now." Eight of the original 10 cast members signed on for this redux. Molly Canfield Howard flew in from Cambridge, Mass. And Michael Pavich, who played St. Patrick, flew up from Seattle. But first, Pavich asked Tommy, " 'Don't I have to come up early for rehearsal?' And he started laughing." Tommy calls this gang the Why Bother Rehearsing Theatre Company.  "Using repressed past-life hypnosis we have reconstructed and reinvented the story line," the program read.

So on Friday night, with everyone squished into Barbara's living room, they pulled it off. Such as it was.  And now it's all history. Although an army helps with this party -- supplying everything from food to taxi and even limo rides home for anyone too into his cups -- it's still a tremendous amount of work.  Barbara feels kind of bad about pulling the plug. But, as she says, it's time.  There'll always be that green spot on the sidewalk as a memento, the remnant of an incident having to do with dying beer-battered halibut green. "It's kind of a shame to say, well, we've done it for 60 years, that's it," Tommy said " But it's OK. We're proud of ourselves for partying that long.  "What a legacy."