LEWISTON – Richard Martin, the program director of the Franco-American Heritage Center, gaped at the ceiling for a long minute and finally shrugged.

Who needs a connection with the Irish?

“It’ll be fun,” he said of the Franco center’s St. Patrick’s Day celebration planned for Friday night. Green beer, dancing and a steaming boiled dinner have a way of making everyone Irish for a night, he said.

Besides, the Little Canada landmark plans to lend a hand to its Irish counterpart in Portland’s West End. For each paid admission, the Franco Center plans to donate $1 to the Maine Irish Heritage Center’s “Save the Bell Tower” campaign.

In 2006, the Irish center was rocked by the collapse of its 5,000-pound bell. It crashed through two floors of the former St. Dominic’s Catholic Church and forced the center to postpone lots of events.

“We are all struggling nonprofits, but it just seemed to make sense to share and help a fellow heritage center however we could,” Celia McGuckian, the Franco center’s development director, wrote to leaders of the Portland center.

For the Lewiston group, the party seems to be growing.

The Franco group held a St. Patrick’s Day celebration last year, too. It was the start of a growing niche here for themed dinner-and-dancing nights. Since last March’s event, the center held a Medieval feast and Mardi Gras party. More are planned.

The Mardi Gras event managed to pull about 100 people to the center despite woolly weather that night, Martin said.

He hopes more will come to the Irish party, featuring the Napper Tandies, a Portland-based pub band known for its mix of traditional and non-traditional Irish songs.

They will be accompanied by a cash bar and a traditional Irish meal: corned beef, cabbage, turnips, carrots and potatoes.