Illustration by Marta Signori The luck of the Irish began not with shamrocks but in tunnels beneath the Nevada Desert in 1873. John Mackay, a Dublin-born miner, after two decades searching for gold struck what became known as the Big Bonanza – one of the largest silver discoveries in history. Overnight the penniless Irish immigrant became one of the wealthiest men in the world. My own Big Bonanza came not with the discovery of a silver mine, but by stumbling through the door of Lucky 7, an Irish pub in Cricklewood, north-west London. Fluid pricing Lucky 7 is the final destination on what is known as the Irish isosceles – the legendary north-west London pub crawl that begins at Angie’s in Willesden Green, moves on to the Sir Colin Campbell on Kilburn High Road, and ends, inevitably, here. Prices, like everything upon entering the Lucky 7, are hazy. A pint of Guinness costs somewhere in the region of £4.40, though this may vary.…