DETAILS OF the national St Patrick’s Festival are to be announced in Dublin this evening by Minister for Arts and Tourism Martin Cullen.
The St Patricks Festival 2009 will run from March 12th-17th and during the five days 4,000 performers and a million people are expected to participate in music, street theatre, carnivals, comedy, street performances and treasure hunts. The festival will culminate with the St Patrick’s Day parade on March 17th, whose theme this year is “Sky’s the limit!”
Organisers of the Limerick St Patrick’s Day festival, announcing its theme “Go Green” yesterday, have promised to add some colour to the doom and gloom.
The organisers said it can be interpreted as green for Limerick, green for St Patrick’s Day or green for the environment, giving participants greater scope for creativity. Promising Limerick’s biggest ever parade, they said all sporting, cultural, community, business and social organisations were invited to take part in the event on Tuesday, March 17th.
Speaking at the official launch, Mayor of Limerick Cllr John Gilligan appealed to everyone to get involved.
“We all know that we’re in a deep recession at the moment where there’s a lot of doom and gloom around the place but that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy ourselves,” he said.
The Limerick St Patrick’s Festival will start on Sunday, March 15th, with the International Band Parade, now in its 37th year, beginning at noon.
“Last year 55,000 people attended the festivities in Limerick making it the second largest parade held in the country and the biggest parade in the city for the last 10 years,” said Fran O’Donnell, managing director of Futureama Productions, organisers of the parade.