Irish stew

I have been asked to cater a pre-St Patrick's Day party thrown by an Irish diplomat. She is holding it in her home and around 30 people will be present, including her boss, so it has to go well.

The current plan is to serve oysters and Guinness to start with, accompanied by some other finger food for those philistines who don't like oysters, then an Irish stew as the main course. I've never cooked Irish stew so went for a trial run. Given that English lamb (even very good, very expensive meat bought from the farmers) tends to be tender at the expense of flavour, I used mutton. The flavour of the stew is wonderful: aromatic, meaty, the slight greasiness of the mutton cut through with the sharp warmth of white pepper, and the vegetables were soft without disintegrating, but the meat is almost all incredibly tough. Some scraps of meat are as they should be, falling apart and only just resisting the teeth, but these scraps have to be winkled out from the corners of the bones. They are only accessible if you didn't mind using fingers, teeth and cutlery in a satisfying but undignified scrabble.

That's fine for me on my own, but I don't think it will be appropriate to ask the Irish Ambassador, twenty-odd senior political journalists and various members of parliament to perform this feat while standing around making polite conversation. It's a pity, isn't it?

The conundrum is how to make an Irish stew that is edible with a single piece of cutlery but that has all the flavour that comes from stewing mutton on the bone. Or should I simply change the menu and serve something else, such as beef and Guinness stew?

It has to have some Irish reference, and should be seasonally appropriate. I'd also welcome suggestions for what to serve alongside for variety and vegetarians, as well as ideas about dessert. Is rhubarb tart enough, and does anyone have a good recipe for rhubarb tart?

Please help!