Green giant
2023 festival programme will celebrate inclusivity in Ireland
DUBLIN is bracing itself for what organisers are predicting will be the largest ever St Patrick’s day parade this year.
Tourism Minister Catherine Martin launched the massive jamboree for this year’s festival that will see hundreds of thousands partying in the capital.
Ms Martin was speaking at the unveiling of a programme of events which is predicted to bring half a million visitors to the city for the big day on March 17.
The parade will feature seven creative pageants, 10 transitional showpiece performances, 15 marching bands from across Ireland, North America and Canada.
It will also see ore than 4,000 participants take part in what is shaping up to be the largest ever National St Patrick’s Day Parade.
The celebrations of Irish arts, culture and heritage will also see concerts and a Festival Quarter based at the historic Collins Barracks on the city’s north quays.
Some of the performers over the festival there will include Kila, Panti Bliss and Pillow Queens.
The quarter will feature Spiegeltent Mor and Spiegeltent Beag, the 3,000 capacity outdoor main stage, story yurt, performance spaces, relaxation areas, a mini-funfair including Ferris wheel and the Irish food and craft village.
It is said that everyone is Irish on St Patrick’s Day...
CATHERINE MARTIN TOURISM MINISTER
WELCOME
All daytime events will be free of charge, along with the full day and night programme on St Patrick’s Day, supported by Dublin Airport.
Night time events on March 16 and 18 will require a pre-purchased ticket that will be valid for the full evening’s programme.
Ms Martin said: “It is said that everyone is Irish on St Patrick’s Day and we welcome that inclusion warmly.
“It is a day to celebrate our heritage and our history and we invite the world to join in the 2023 celebrations.
“The festival has grown and flourished through the years and is full of the best of Irish culture, creativity and heritage of which we are all very proud. I have approved support of €600,000 from my department for this great festival and I look forward to the full and eventful line up which has been organised for this year’s festival.”
The theme around the programme of arts events for the days around the parade is ‘We are One.’
Speaking to reporters at the launch, Ms Martin added: “The theme about is about inclusivity, it’s about…. I suppose no better time than St Patrick’s Day to give out that welcoming message, the cead mile failte that we are one as a people and to celebrate diversity too.”
Ms Martin also used the occasion to condemn the protests outside migrant centres. She also played down concerns that there won’t be room for refugees in hotels as business owners will soon want to accept higherpaying tourist bookings instead.
Ms Martin said: “Protests like that of course are a concern. I think with tourism, it’s always a time when there’s pressure during St Patrick’s weekend and of course not only St Patrick’s festivities, but we also have the Six Nations, Ireland vs England that same weekend.
“So it will be no more than the pressures that are usually felt there.”
Running alongside the main festival programme will be a series of other arts events, similar to the Fringe of other arts festivals.
A spokeswoman said:
“As part of a curated programme of events in collaboration with cultural partners around the city, there will be many St Patrick’s Festival supported live events and club nights throughout Dublin over the period of the festival.
“This is a wonderful opportunity to celebrate the city while also supporting our workers across the arts, culture, heritage, festivals, entertainment, tourism, hospitality and accommodation industries, locally, nationally and internationally.
“New for 2023 is the Festival After Dark, a series of events in nightclubs post 11pm.”
Lord Mayor of Dublin, Caroline Conroy added: “I’m really looking forward to this year’s St Patrick’s Festival, not only the parade through our capital’s streets on March 17 but also the fantastic Festival Quarter, back for its second year at the National Museum of Ireland, Collins Barracks.”
Go to www.stpatricksfestival.ie
TOMORROW is St Brigid’s Day the feast day of Ireland’s only “matron” saint.
It’s special this year, with a new bank holiday in her honour next Monday, February 6.
From now on, the first Monday of February will be celebrated by a week of events across the country.
A special documentary on RTE tonight, Finding Brigid – presented by Derry Girls actress Siobhan Mcsweeney – will look at her life and legacy.
Siobhan said: “Ireland has gone through many extraordinary and wonderful changes quite quickly and Brigid is a link between the very modern and an Ireland of the past that we recognise.
“I don’t find it an accident that it’s only now we finally celebrate her and it’s the first public holiday named for a woman.
“An official recognition for any kind of woman and I think that represents the island of now.
“I think Brigid speaks to us now in a way that perhaps she couldn’t and wasn’t allowed to in a time before.
“Brigid in a way can honour not only our women but what we lost through our subjugation of women.
“Brigid’s Day, La Fheile Bride, will be a day for intelligence and compassion for everyone.”
St Brigid, who is known by many names including Lady of the Irish, is the only woman of our patron saints, along with Patrick and Colmcille.
She is the patron saint of poets, scholars, midwives, new-borns, dairymaids, blacksmiths and many more. She was also responsible for founding the first convent in Ireland in Co Westmeath.
The fifth century saint was said to perform healing miracles and was renowned for helping those in need.
Born in Faughart, Co Kildare, St Brigid has close associations with pre-christian Ireland and pagan and Celtic traditions.
We’ve always paid tribute to her on February 1, traditionally by making a St Brigid’s cross from rushes.
The cross – her emblem – is said to protect homes from fire and hunger wherever it is displayed.
Historically, her feast day is linked with fertility and marks the start of spring.
But 1,500 years after her death, 2023 is finally Brigid’s year.
Here, women from Irish life tell why they’re celebrating her enduring influence and how she continues to inspire. Singer Imelda May was one of
Brigid can speak to us now in a way she couldn’t have before SIOBHAN MCSWEENEY RTE’S FINDING BRIGID
the leading figures to champion the campaign to make La Fheile Bride a public holiday.
She was involved with the Brigit 2022 initiative – the festival to celebrate women – last year, where she performed.
Imelda, 48, from Dublin’s Liberties, describes St Brigid as: “An ancient goddess, a woman of wisdom and our matron saint.
“She was the protector of children, saviour of poor, symbol for smiths and worshipped by poets. Inspiring past and to come, her creative flame fires eternal.
“It’s time to thank her. It’s time to heal. It’s about time.”
Fine Gael TD Josepha Madigan described St Brigid as “a trailblazer”.
The Minister of State for Special Needs Education said: “Her influence is still felt today.
“She was a woman of deep faith, a born leader who was determined to live a meaningful life.
“She wanted to make a difference. Brigid has inspired women down through the ages and will continue to do so.
“Those of us who have the privilege of being elected take our inspiration from those who have gone before us.
“There is no better role model for me as a public representative.
“She was ambitious, single- minded, innovative and full of compassion.
“She was a feminist who empowered both men and women. She wanted power not for power’s sake, but to empower others.
“Brigid’s legacy is she is for everydescendants
body – whether it is the spiritual or the Celtic tradition.
“It is the first holiday honouring a woman. Not before time.”
Best-selling novelist Cathy Kelly, 56, said: “The Brigid I’m interested is the pre-christian Brigid, who was so adored by the people, Christianity had to adopt her.
“It was easier to rebrand the goddess than to ban people from worshipping her.
“The ancient, pre-christian Brigid was a powerful ancient Irish triplegoddess with three parts to her. She was a smith, a healer and an inspiration to poets.
“She was also known to protect domestic animals. The original multi- tasking woman.
“Her feast day is also Imbolc, the first day of spring and the traditional time of rebirth of the earth.
“So it’s no surprise that she’s considered a goddess of healing and childbirth. I love the stories of the ancient world of Ireland and even though there are many versions of Brigid, and nobody knows which one is the true one, I really like the image of the strong female Irish goddesses who were treated with as much respect as the males.
“St Brigid is a feminist heroine to me.” Broadcaster Mary Kennedy, 68, said St Brigid was “always part of her ken” growing up in Clondalkin, near St. Brigid’s Well.
Mary, who co- wrote Journey to the Well: Connecting to Celtic Ways and Wisdom with her sister Deidre Ni Chinneide, also features on tonight’s RTE documentary.
She said: “St Brigid makes me feel very proud.
“She was a bishop and straddled the pagan, Celtic, and the Christian world. She has meaning for everybody.
“She was an iconic woman of great tradition and compassion with a strong sense of social justice. Brigid has great associations with the Church, which is a very male dominated space.
“We take great pride in St Patrick as our patron saint and this holiday gives recognition to the fact there are two genders with complimentary qualities.
“St Brigid has a very prominent place in our psyches and she deserves to be honoured.”
Finding Brigid, RTE One tonight at 10.15pm.