MOONCOIN CASTLE

Mooncoin Castle is condemned--to be a shopping center, creating a moving problem for Jeremy the jackdaw, a magpie collector, and depriving Patrick de Lucy's ghost of his old haunts. On a more material level the castle is a battleground between elderly, bespectacled preservationist Hyde and paunchy, cigar-flaunting promoter Crotty. Stirring things up (for a price--Jeremy's four pound, three shillings cache) is Maude Muldoon who may be a witch--one workman can't keep his hat on, one can't keep his feet still, one can't keep his pants up (when a young lady is taking his picture)--but is certainly a bit of a fraud. When Patrick spots Jeremy's prize ring as that of his rival in romance Dermot O'More, he sees the chance to pass off his grave as the Irish hero's and make Mooncoin a shrine--and blarneyer Maud seizes the chance to be keeper of the flame. Performing even more ignominiously are The Unmentionables, otherwise the Beatles in their Edwardian period. Stale is the word for it--the shopping center's not tile only thing ""just like they have in America.