Parades past and present

St Patrick's Day is better than it used to be – or maybe not, depending on who you're listening to. BRIAN O'CONNELLtalks to people around the country about their plans for, and memories of, the festivities

DUBLIN

Donal Shiels

Chief executive, Dublin  St Patrick’s Day Festival

“I grew up in Artane and my sisters were in the Billie Barry Kids, so we would always have gone into town to see the parade.

“My own memories of St Patrick’s Day as a child are, like most people I suspect, pretty black and white with lots of rain. These days there is a lot more colour and entertainment associated with the festival. I remember, some years back, an alarm company sponsored practically every float in the parade, and while there was something quaint about it, it was also cringe-inducing.

“The only parade I saw outside Dublin was in London a few years back, and the scale of it took me by surprise. The mayor of London at the time was Ken Livingstone and he walked the entire route with Michael McDowell on one side and Martin McGuinness on the other!

“I went to Japan recently to see how they prepared for the festival and was amazed to find out they have 16 different parades there. There’s a lot of minister-bashing going on at the moment, but TDs going abroad at this time of year is hugely important and lets people in other places know how much we appreciate their efforts.

“I worked on the China Ireland cultural exchange programme for a number of years before this role. Coming back in 2004, I began work on this job and this is my last year in charge. It’s pretty much a continuous planning process – after we finish one parade we’re more or less straight away looking at planning the next. For instance, we already have bands signed up for the 2010 festival and have some inquiries made with regards to 2011. Right now we’re working 12- to 14-hour days, getting into the office at 8am and not leaving till 10 or 11 at night. I’m working across the full range of things, from seeing how our planning has progressed, to media work and keeping an eye on the financial side of things.

“Close to 4,000 people, from full-time staff to volunteers, make the festival happen, with an audience in Dublin of up to one million people. I will miss the cut and thrust of the job when I leave. The reaction from the public is what makes it so worthwhile. For me, watching a large crowd gathering with the sole aim of enjoying themselves is a really important thing, and I take pride in the fact that I helped deliver it.”

GALWAY

Claude Madec

Parade entry co-ordinator

“I’m from Brittany in France and didn’t even know where Ireland was as a child. I came to Galway in 1980 – I knew about Irish music and wanted to come and see what it was all about. I met my wife, Mary, and have stayed here ever since. The first St Patrick’s Day I remember was when Galway was celebrating its quincentennial year in 1984.

“I was amazed at the amount of community involvement and how proud people were of what they were producing. It was an awful day, rain and hailstone, and the number of people who came out on the streets to support the parade was something else.

“By this stage I had learned about St Patrick and the snakes and all that stuff, and I also found out he spent some time in France. When I read more about him, I wasn’t sure if he had existed or not. It did make me curious about the man, and I even climbed Croagh Patrick. I did it for fun and had been told it was a fantastic experience. By the time I arrived at the top, I realised the Irish were mad!

“I came back to Galway in 1993 having studied pastoral work in America for several years and began working with people with learning disabilities. The group I work with is called That’s Life Pastoral Services. The first time I got involved with the parade was in 2001, after a show we did in the Town Hall Theatre called Ocean Blues. The co-ordinator of the parade saw the show and asked me to consider an entry. We recycled every old costume we had and managed to scrape our first entry together. It was magic. We had sharks in the street, mermaids and huge fishermen, but what moved us was the response from the crowd. So at the moment we’re preparing for our eighth parade.

“The Volvo Ocean Race is here in May, so we’re going with a maritime theme for this year’s entry. Right up to the event we’ve been making costumes and finishing painting the float. We’re all feeling exhausted and just about ready to say ‘never again’! There will be 130 of us marching in the parade, including persons with disabilities, volunteers, transition-year students and friends.

“This year has been a disaster in that we only started preparing a month ago and some years we would have started six months earlier. But I’m sure we’ll get there in the end and it will be a fantastic day. People with a disability are often perceived as people who receive a service. What we are doing is sharing our gift of joy and enthusiasm with the local community and making disabilities more visible.”

CORK

Billy O’Callaghan

Bandleader

“My father was conductor of the Barrack Street Band from the 1960s to the 1980s. For me, then, the band and taking part in St Patrick’s Day was always part of my environment growing up. The first time I took part as a child was in the 1970s, playing the triangle, when I was about eight years old. I’m 43 now, and back then the parade was really just an organised traffic jam. A bus would bring us to the start of the parade from Barrack Street. We’d play a hymn, maybe Hail Glorious St Patrick or something like that, and then we’d start marching. The parades started earlier in them days too, about 11 or 12 in the morning.

“The band itself has been performing in the parade since 1889, so we have a long and proud tradition. It’s difficult nowadays to keep the numbers involved with people spread out throughout the country. When I was growing up, very few went to university and if we did, it was locally to UCC. Now you could have youngsters all over Ireland from Monday to Friday and trying to get commitment is hard.

“The day of the parade is really like any other, in some respects. We are a marching band, so well used to taking part in events. Having said that, St Patrick’s Day is a bit special, and we have an emphasis on Irish music.

“The event has changed for the better, I think – it’s a far more carnival atmosphere nowadays. I can remember one year when we ended up behind a Jurassic Park-themed truck. It had this big speaker system on the thing blasting on about “60 million years ago . . .” or whatever, and sure no one could hear a note of what we were playing!

“After the parade, we do what the whole country does – we go and socialise. First of all we might go back to the band room, where we’ll play a few tunes, and then disperse from there. This is my 35th year performing in the parade and, for any marching band, St Patrick’s Day is one of the big ones.

“The reaction to a marching band is fantastic. I think it’s because people are getting something unique. It’s not something you can imitate or digitise. It’s real. Some of the kids will be at their first parade and the excitement on their faces and whole razzmatazz of the event brings us back every year, rain, hail or shine.”

WATERFORD

Liza Giani

Member of the Harley- Davidson owners’ group

“When we were kids, the parade was a real day out. We used to go into town and watch it from the same spot every year, at the corner of Shaws, near the Bank bar.

“I think the parade used to be better when I was little. There were more floats, but maybe it’s more to do with the fact that when you are small, everything seems bigger and better. I never took part as a kid but would have loved to have been part of it. My family were quite ‘arty’ – my mother is a painter and I did art in college – so that side of it appealed to me always.

“I started working in the Waterford Harley-Davidson shop about five years ago, although I’ve known the owner all my life. Our Harley-Davidson owners’ group here is called the Celtic Thunder Chapter. We started taking part in the parade about three years ago and have close to 50 members involved. They all ride their bikes and the owner, Lenny, has an American pick-up truck. I usually sit in the back of that on top of a bike. It’s a great spectacle – it’s not often you get to see 50 Harley-Davidsons coming down the road together.

“We get loads of waves from the little kids who might be scared by the noise at first but get over it quickly. The plan for the day is to meet at the shop on Tuesday morning about 10am. The group gathers and we get our photograph taken and then we dress up our bikes. Usually, people will have green feather boas, mini leprechauns and Irish flags stuck on everywhere. I have a green cowboy hat picked out for myself for the day.

“After the parade we go back to the shop again and always have tea and coffee. We usually go out to the Ramada Hotel then for a day out. We have lots of customers from all over the country that love coming down. It’s a chance for them and their kids to meet up and spend the day together. We have a real cross-section of society in the club, everyone from business people to undertakers! So, it’s not your stereotypical biker type.

“It’s nice also for the community to see us taking part in an event like this and helps dispel any preconceived misconceptions. The Ladies of Harley form part of our group also, and it’s good to show that Harley-Davidson owners aren’t just burly men!”

CLARE

Fionna Power

Acting principal, Scoil Chríost Rí, Cloughleigh

“The school is open 30 years and I’ve been teaching here since it opened. I’m from the town of Ennis, and we have been taking part in the parade, I’d say, for the last 20 years.

“Growing up as child I was always excited about the parade. Everyone loves the bit of spectacle and colour.

“When we started taking part as a school, we began in a small way, maybe with a few tin whistles and the kids wearing their sports gear. Now we make our own multi-coloured costumes. We had an artist in the school and he made a giant St Patrick’s head and a number of swans, so the theme this year is St Patrick and the Children of Lír.

“Anyone who wants to take part, from about third class up, is able to. We find them a costume and something for them to do. We started majorettes about two years ago. A special-needs assistant in the school was very interested in that, and got a group going. There are about 40 in the group now and they wear a mixture of red and navy skirts and shake red-and-white pom-poms. Classes spent the last few weeks making flags for the majorettes to use as part of their routine.

“We would have a very large population in the school. I think we counted 27 different nationalities at one stage. Some of them have subsequently become Irish citizens . . . and the parade is a chance for them to feel very proud of their new homeland. It’s a big thing also for their parents, and this year some of them are going to join us in the parade and they will wear their traditional costumes.

“Within the school we teach the story of St Patrick, but I think, to be honest, the children look on it more as an Irish pastime as opposed to having any religious meaning.

“I can remember one time, maybe about 10 years ago, when it poured rain. We had put a huge amount of work into paper flowers and decorating the float with streamers and ribbons. Of course, once the rain arrived the colours all ran all over the children! The kids had a ball, although the teachers weren’t so happy having put so much work into it. Since then, any decorations are made out of cloth. For staff, it’s a lot of effort and work and we’d be pulling our hair out some days in the lead-up to it. When we take part, though, and everyone is cheering and kids are getting a huge buzz from it, then it makes it all worthwhile.”