Review: Luck O’ The Irish
Publisher: Reilly O’ Company
Year: 1985
Tagline: Win Pots Of Gold
Players: 2 to 6
how we met
On this day, at this particular thrift shop, the only item that caught my fancy was Luck O’ The Irish. Why? Look at that cover. I will wait while you scroll. I felt like I just won a bonus game on a slot machine. And the box is unusually tall, which just made carrying it that much more ridiculous and fun.
I felt luck was on my side, and I paid my $2.99 happily.
how it plays
Luck O’ The Irish is a roll and move set collection game. The first player to Dublin with a Pot of Gold, a Harp, a Shamrock, a Shillelagh and an Emerald wins!
Players start the game with one Pot of Gold and must roll doubles to move. If after a third throw a player has not thrown doubles, they may pay to move by giving up their Pot of Gold.
In future, if a player rolls double they get to roll again.
Players can move in any direction they like at a crossroads, but they can’t double back on the steps they have taken except at a dead end. Players can trade if they are on the same spot. Players must pay a Pot of Gold to collect many of the other items, such as Harp, Shamrock or Shillelagh.
Certain spaces on the board cause other things to happen. The Leprechaun space allows a player to pick up a Wishing Card, which may be good or bad. The Celtic Cross causes a missed turn. The Banshee will cause you to give up items. The Sea is so beautiful it causes a player to drop their Emerald into it!
Again, the first player back to Dublin with all of their items safe in hand wins Luck O’ The Irish!
how it went
When I got Luck O’ The Irish home and saw the wild board in the shape of Ireland and saw that the game includes a Banshee, I was utterly delighted! My family was game to try and play on one of our game nights.
The game box advertises winning a free trip to Ireland on the back, which in hindsight might have been a good sign that very little planning went into game design here. Roll and move can be a bit of a bummer, but it’s not enough alone to dampen my enthusiasm for a vintage game. One of the issues with Luck O’ The Irish is that you have agency in how you travel all the different roads. This has a couple of effects:
- It can take patience to count out all of the possible paths you can take to try and make the most advantageous move after rolling two dice.
- You mostly avoid any negative spaces because usually you can simply choose not to move to them. There is only one Banshee space on the board and she remained safe from our encounters for our entire game. Rather disappointing.
This agency in choosing your direction probably occurred to whoever made Luck O’ The Irish because the game rules do include difficult-to-find guidance like: The Emerald can only be obtained by going one way via Galway out into Galway Bay. We played this correctly, but how difficult would it be to put arrows on the board indicating a one-way road?
During gameplay you can expect to collect items, bumble them into the sea, get them stolen, not be able to afford them, and all manner of good and bad.
During play we encountered leprechauns, stole from each other, lost items, gained items, got sent to Dublin and counted our moves out over and over. Our play took about an hour but felt much longer. Jaime ultimately made it back to Dublin with all the necessary junk first. Fair play to her.
play or pass
Pass. I enjoyed finding Luck O’ The Irish and carrying the giant box at the thrift shop. I enjoyed watching people’s faces the first time they saw the cover. I enjoyed temporarily owning a game with a banshee in it, though we did not meet. I did not enjoy much of anything else about the game.