No one dumped powdered vegetable dye into the Willamette River to turn it green Monday night, but that didn’t mean Salem’s Irish and Irish-for-the-day didn’t celebrate St. Patrick’s Day in high spirit and style.

Chicago might hold the record for coloring its main waterway, the Chicago River, emerald green to fete St. Paddy, but Salem revelers held their own at places such as Bentley’s Grill, Jonathan’s restaurant, and Magoo’s Sports Bar.

The three downtown spots honored the patron saint of Ireland with performances by the Salem Firefighters Pipes & Drums corps. The 15-member band, decked in full kilt regalia, kept the bar filled with applauding patrons and near-deafening bagpipe and drum music.

Station No. 4 Battalion Chief Cord Von Derahe, the band’s president, said the group had been playing throughout the Mid-Valley all weekend long in honor of St. Patrick’s Day. It would play nine sets at the three places over six hours on Monday.

He said the group is naturally popular at this time of year, and he starts getting bookings about six months before the Kelly-green holiday.

“Our main mission, though, is to honor firefighters and public service officers through their promotions, graduations from the firefighting academy, retirements and memorials,” Von Derahe said.

The group uses the funds raised by playing to help offset costs during the rest of the year, and several of the firefighters’ wives, dressed also in kilts, sold water bottles and beanies to help the corps out when they weren’t passing the green-glittered hat.

All of the musicians are Salem firefighters, but it is not an official function of the fire department. And none of them knew how to hold a bagpipe, let alone play one, when they joined the corps.

“We all learned at the same time in 2008,” said Paul Bridgehouse, a captain of Engine No. 3 and the group’s pipe major. “It’s taken on an energy of its own, and we’ve been progressing ever since.”

The dining room and bar patrons at Bentley’s clapped enthusiastically after the group finished the Scottish tune “Auld Lang Syne,” and adults and children alike rushed to take pictures and video of the group set up around the dining-room fireplace.

Green beer and shots of Jameson’s Irish Whiskey were popular all night as the smell of corned beef and cabbage wafted from the grill’s kitchen. Irish-influenced meals such as chicken wings tossed in Guinness stout barbecue sauce and Guinness-braised short ribs also were getting plenty of attention.

If the firefighting corps of musicians was tired Monday, they didn’t show it.

They were ready to entertain at Magoo’s, which has been hosting St. Patrick’s Day merriment since 1981, said owner Jim Eastridge.

He was expecting a line of patrons and a full house, if past years were any indication, and was serving corned beef sandwiches to folks eager to eat among the color of the day.

And the Salem Firefighters Pipes & Drums corps was ready to help them all — the Irish and the honorary Irish — celebrate the day.

ccurrie@statesmanjournal.com; (503) 399-6746 or follow on Twitter at @CATMCurrie.