New York parties but this St Patrick's Day is one of exclusion

There was no Guinness and there was no mayor.

Two long-standing staples of the New York St Patrick’s Day parade were missing this year, with one of its major sponsors and the city’s biggest public figure boycotting the event over its exclusion of gay rights groups.

The controversy may have cast a cloud over this year’s event, but New Yorkers would not allow anything to rain on their parade — which they claim is the biggest and oldest in the world.

More than one million of them lined 5th Avenue to wave their Irish flags in support of a colourful and musical array of marching bands, sports clubs and their marching military, police and fire-fighting figures.

Among them was Taoiseach Enda Kenny, proclaiming his pride in taking part on what he said was “Ireland’s day all over the world”.

And, for the first time in history, were the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the gardaí — marching side by side — in a moment which the Taoiseach said, made him “very proud”.

It was, Mr Kenny said, “an example of how Ireland has moved in the last number of years” to a “level where co-operation is exceptional and unprecedented.”

Enda Kenny wore, not just the shamrock, “but also the white between the green and orange which is symbolic of what we have today with the PSNI and the gardaí,” he explained proudly as he posed for photographs with both forces.

But further up New York’s 5th Avenue were colours of a different kind, where gay, lesbian and bisexual members of the Irish American community held up a huge rainbow flag urging: “Boycott Homophobia!”

“This is our parade and it’s being hijacked by a bunch of religious bigots,” said protest organiser, Emmaia Gelman.

“The parade is so notoriously homophobic that the mayor won’t march in it, the city council won’t march in it. The parade does not represent Irish culture,” she said.

Another protester, John Francis Mulligan, said: “The Taoiseach is marching today and that is an outrage on so many levels. He’s from Mayo, he should know about boycotts, because that’s where it began.

“There are 342 banners in this parade, we want one banner, that says lesbian, gay bisexual, transgender Irish Americans because that is who we are, it’s our identity and like everyone else we have the right to identify under a banner,” he said.

“We are not asking for anything different to all the other ones.”

The Taoiseach had earlier in the morning visited the traditional St Patrick’s Day breakfast in Gracie Mansion — the residence of the New York Mayor, Bill De Blasio — who boycotted the parade over its ban on any symbolism that would identify anyone as gay or advocate gay rights.

The issue was not discussed in their public remarks at the event. In front of several hundred people who had gathered in his mansion, Mr De Blasio toasted New York — the “city of immigrants” where residents “never forget” where they came from.

And Mr Kenny told the recently elected Italian-American mayor, whose relations with the city’s Irish community have not got off to a great start, to: “Rest assured that the Irish community here in New York City will work with you in the interest of the development of the economy of this city, of the facilities of this city and of the rights of the people of this city.”

He said “many of those people in the parade today are also members of the gay community and they are marching proudly in the St Patrick’s Day parade as I will myself on behalf of my country.”

The Taoiseach chose to march with the GAA, which was celebrating the 100th anniversary of its New York organisation. And he didn’t forget to take some time out of his official engagements of “Ireland’s Day all over the world” to watch local team, Castlebar Mitchels, at Croke Park, in the All-Ireland club final.