Gay group will march in New York St Patrick’s Day Parade

Members of the gay community will be able to march in New York’s famous St Patrick’s Day Parade under their own banner for the first time after organisers said they were lifting a longstanding ban.

The move is understood to have come about because of efforts by gay staff at broadcaster NBC to be allowed to march in the parade under their own banner. NBC is traditionally the broadcaster of the event and it had been claimed that management at the station had threatened to refuse to cover the parade unless the NBC staffers were accommodated.

Guinness had previously removed its sponsorship of the event and this year, Democratic Mayor, Bill de Blasio had also refused to take part over the organisers’ decision to only allow gay people to march in the parade alongside other groups and not under their own banner.