Forecasters confident weather won’t rain on St Patrick’s Day parade

St Patrick’s Day usually brings with it the worst of the Irish weather but parade organisers will be quietly pleased that things are looking good for this year. Last year’s St Patrick’s Day occurred in the middle of one of the coldest Marches on record with wind and freezing rain that numbed the spirits of participants and spectators.

This St Patrick’s Day will not be as springlike as it was earlier this week, but it will be dry for the most part and cool. There will be a mixture of sunshine and clouds and temperatures of 10 degrees, considerably down on the 15 degrees expected tomorrow.

The St Patrick’s weekend got under way yesterday evening with the big céilí in St Stephen’s Green. The Irish may have a traditional reticence to go céilí dancing at 4.30pm on a Friday, but such inhibitions were not shared by the tourists and the foreign students staying in Dublin.

Merle Bukowski and her partner Julian Niddetkeke, both from Bremen, are in Dublin for the weekend and were waltzing their way around St Stephen's Green. "I've heard the people are nice and I love the colour green," she said.

Friends Biogo Borges, Bernardo Maria and Manel Mello from Lisbon came over for the weekend to visit their friends who study here. They were surprised to find gardaí asking them to put away their cans of Dutch Gold which they were drinking on the street.

Dublin Airport is expecting 220,000 people to pass through its doors over the long weekend, a similar number to last year, but much of the traffic will be going to Paris for the big match.

St Patrick's Festival chief executive Susan Kirby said the hotel trade was expecting more visitors from overseas this year, although The Gathering helped to push numbers up last year.

Irish Hotels Federation chief executive Tim Fenn said many key destinations were "noticeably busier", with many members reporting an increase in bookings for this weekend. He added: "The influx of international visitors are concentrated, as in previous years, in Dublin, Cork, Galway and Killarney and occupancy and bookings reflect this."

Michael Flatley will have a busy weekend. He is the grand marshal of the St Patrick's Day celebrations in London tomorrow and again at the Cork parade the following day.