Are you heading to a parade to celebrate St Patrick’s Day or what kind of traditions take place where you are? We want to hear from people across Ireland and the world on how they mark the occasion.
Ireland’s biggest parade will take place in Dublin once again but local towns and villages will have their own festivities, while all over the world, expats will be marking the day in various ways.
In fact, unlike what most people would expect, the tradition of St Patrick’s Day parades actually began in America, before the founding of the United States. A Spanish colony in what is now St Augustine, in Florida, held the first recorded parade on March 17th, 1601. The celebrations were organised by the colony’s Irish priest, Padre Ricardo Artur, or Fr Richard Arthur, a former soldier believed to have been born in Limerick.
More than a century later, homesick Irish soldiers serving in the British military paraded on March 17th in Boston in 1737 and in New York in 1762. NYC’s annual parade is now the world’s biggest celebration of the patron saint of Ireland.
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Have your say: So whether you’re in Dublin, Leitrim, Australia or anywhere else in the world, we want to hear from you on what you’ll do to celebrate St Patrick’s Day.
