St Patrick's Day is coming!!

After missing two St Patrick's Day Parades due to Covid 19 restrictions, here we go again.

It is one of the most celebrated and happy days in the country. It falls on the 17th March, the date of his death in 461. It has become the celebration of Ireland itself both in Ireland and worldwide.

Although St. Patrick’s Day has been celebrated in Ireland for over 1,000 years, the traditional parade is more recent. Funny thing to say, it didn’t take place in Ireland, but in a Spanish Colony, nowadays known as St. Augustine, in Florida.

Records show that the first St. Patrick’s Day parade was held on 17th March 1601.

It looks like the residents honoured St Patrick as the ‘protector’ of the town’s maize fields.

On that day, they gathered and moved through the streets carrying images of the saint while the fort’s cannons were firing. Afterwards, the celebration kept going on with food, drink and music.

More than a century later, on 17th March 1737, another parade took place in Boston, this time. A group of Irish Protestants gathered on the streets to celebrate, but it is New York City that strongly established the modern tradition.

The first New York parade took place in 1762. A group of Irish soldiers, serving in the British army and garrisoning in New York, paraded in the streets wearing green, singing Irish songs and playing Irish tunes.

In the following years, Irish emigrants kept showing pride in their roots parading on that day in many other American cities.

We had to wait until 1931, when the first state-sponsored and official Parade took place in Dublin. Irish Emigrants brought this tradition to their homeland.

Since then, the Parade has been an explosion of colours, music, and joy.

Attenders, in thousands, gather early in the morning along Dublin streets to secure a better view, often braving cold wind and rain, but it is really worth it. People dress in green and wear green badges and sprigs of shamrock on a lapel or hat.

The Parade itself is the symbol of Irishness and often, the theme is linked with contemporary and traditional Irish arts, culture and heritage.

This year, the theme will be Connections/Naisc and more pageants, more marching bands and more participants than ever before are announced.

It will connect families, friends and communities across Ireland and worldwide.

I am looking forward to watching the 2022 Parade. Wits, inventiveness and imagination produce amazing and peculiar floats, while smiles and happy faces give the Parade its unique spirit.

I have been one of the thousand people waiting for the parade in the past years, so I can say it will be a very enjoyable and uplifting experience.

I didn’t have the chance of “drowning the shamrock”, but many people complete the excitement of the day meeting in pubs and hotels for a few drinks and put the shamrock into their last drink of the evening.

Maybe this year is the right one!