Melanie Sabol – Copy Editor
Every year on Mar. 17, thousands of people get together to celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day. Even if you are not Irish, you can still feel the excitement that starts churning during this month.
Saint Patrick’s Day, or the Feast of Saint Patrick, is a religious holiday that is celebrated on Mar. 17 every year. Saint Patrick (c. 385-461 AD) is the most commonly recognized patron Saint of Ireland. The Catholic Church officially recognized Mar. 17th as a holiday in the early 17th Century. This day is a commemoration of Saint Patrick and the arrival of Christianity in Ireland as well as celebrating the heritage and culture of the Irish.
For some, Saint Patrick’s Day means going to parades. There is the parade in New York City. According to nycstpatricksparade.org, “The New York City St. Patrick’s Day Parade is our country’s oldest and proudest Irish tradition, marching for the first time more than 250 years ago, on Mar. 17, 1762 – fourteen years before the Declaration of Independence. Today, the NYC Saint Patrick’s Day Parade is a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. For 253 years, we have marched up 5th Ave. thanks entirely to the generous support of people like you.”
The parade starts on 44th Street and begins at 11 a.m.The parade usually finishes around 4:30-5:00 p.m. because the parade marches up Fifth Avenue and goes past St. Patrick’s Cathedral on 50th Street and then up through 79th Street and ends at the Irish Historical Society.
If you can’t make it to NYC for the parade you can catch it on WNBC Channel Four and it will be televised for four hours during the day. Streaming of the parade first began in 2008.
If you want to go to a parade and you can’t make it to NYC, don’t worry the Greater New Haven St. Patrick’s Day Parade is right in downtown. According to stpatricksdayparade.org, “The St. Patrick’s Day Parade tradition was born in New Haven on Mar. 17, 1842, when about 90 members of the Hibernian Provident Society, a mutual aid organization formed the previous year, marched through the city streets behind a banner made especially for the occasion.”
Greater New Haven also goes onto say, “Since the mid-1950’s the St. Patrick’s Day Parade of Greater New Haven has become one of New England’s premier Irish events. It is the largest, single-day spectator event in the State of Connecticut. As the 6th oldest parade in the nation, its fame was recognized by the Library of Congress in 1999. This keepsake of New Haven’s Irish community became a national keepsake when the Library of Congress selected the Greater New Haven St. Patrick’s Day Parade as an outstanding example of American folklife.”
The parade usually gets crowds of an estimated 325,000 spectators that line the streets of downtown. This year’s Greater New Haven Parade will take place on Sunday, Mar. 16. The parade will begin at 1:30 p.m. and you can also catch coverage starting at 2:00 if you can’t make it downtown. However if you are planning on making your way downtown, the parade route starts at the intersection of Chapel St. and Sherman Ave. The parade will then continue down Chapel St. and then turn onto Church St.
Enjoy your Saint Patrick’s Day!
