LEAD: A recipe in The Living Section on Wednesday, with an article about Irish cooking, omitted an instruction for colcannon.

The low-key, cozy Mermaid Café, 69-70 Dame Street, (353-1) 670 8236, www.mermaid.ie, has an excellent menu of updated traditional Irish cooking.

But there are also other, newer directions in modern Irish cooking.

Since then the face of Irish cooking has been significantly and permanently changed.

Gallagher clearly has imagination and skill but I found his blend of Irish cooking with round-the-world cuisine a bit of a hodgepodge.

Granted, Irish cooking, until lately, was only something you would romanticize in memory.

The kitchen specializes in wintry British and Irish cooking, and the beef shepherd's pie is a real winner, especially for $6.25.

"We don't look up the old textbooks for Irish cooking anymore," said the chef and proprietor, Bernadette O'Shea.

On the continuum that stretches from necessity to indulgence, Irish cooking is somewhere in the middle.

Mr. Calvin is a guru of the new Irish cooking, and his cerebral fare is sometimes stunning, sometimes not.