Record numbers turn out for parade with eastern promise

LARGE groups of eastern Europeans wearing bright ginger wigs and over-sized green hats would normally have been a centre-piece at a St Patrick’s Day Parade.

Yesterday they merely formed the onlookers in the crowd but their significant presence among the thousands of revellers fitted nicely with the chosen ethos of cultural diversity which marked this St Patrick’s Day parade.

The cold but dry conditions meant record numbers crammed the parade’s route and the chosen theme ‘Monsters of the Marsh’ was a particular hit with the younger spectators.

In particular, the Cork Circus’s frollicking frogs equipped with spring blade stilts and the Dowchai puppets attracted rapturous applause.

Among the parade members were several foreign national groups, including the Polish School of Cork, Lithuanian Association group and Mandela’s Children who were all greeted with loud cheers.

Meanwhile, the world’s shortest Patrick’s day parade in Dripsey, Co Cork, which stretched just 25 yards from one pub to another, failed to go ahead this year because the closure of one of the bars meant there was nowhere to house the thousand or more people who flock to the tiny town for the event.

Ireland’s most unique parade began in 1999 in Dripsey 15 miles west of Cork with close to 40 entertainment acts taking part annually. Since then the parade has attracted media interest and visitors from as far away as the US, Canada and Australia.

Each year the parade departed from the Lee Valley Inn and travelled the 25 yards to the door of the nearby Weigh Inn. However, the Lee Valley Inn shut down this year and the Weigh Inn was too small to accommodate parade goers.

Dripsey local Donal O’Riordan who first came up with the idea of holding a Patrick’s Day parade in the town in 1999 said the closure of the pub and the subsequent cancellation of the parade was a sad sign of the times for rural Ireland.

“It is sad really. We would have a thousand people in town for the parade and you can’t cater for them all without the second pub. If weather gets bad which it generally does on Patrick’s day people need to be able to go indoors.

“We are hoping the pub will reopen because people lose touch when pubs close in rural towns. In a place like this a pub is like a community centre.

“Ideally the parade will be back next year. We are hopeful an investor will buy the inn because this parade was great fun.

“A quirky parade that had a community spirit about it.”