With green and glee, major parades held early
People across the United States celebrated Irish heritage at several major St. Patrick's Day parades Saturday, marking the holiday a day early at events that included a big anniversary in Savannah, Georgia, and honored a pioneering female business leader as grand marshal in New York.
The holiday commemorates Ireland's patron saint and was popularized largely by Irish Catholic immigrants. While St. Patrick's Day falls on March 17, some parades were moved up from Sunday, a day of worship for the Christian faithful.
Manhattan's St. Patrick's Day Parade, which dates to 1762 — 14 years before the U.S. Declaration of Independence — is one of the world's largest Irish heritage festivities.
Megan Stransky of Houston and two relatives planned a Broadway weekend to coincide with the parade, seeing it as a prime opportunity to remember their family's Irish roots and the traditions that helped shape their upbringing.
The event didn't disappoint. The grand marshal, Irish-born Heineken USA CEO Maggie Timoney, is the first female CEO of a major U.S. beer company. At a preparade reception at New York's mayoral residence, Irish Minister for Justice Helen McEntee hailed the recognition for Timoney and noted some other causes for celebrating Irish American links this year, including Irish actor Cillian Murphy's best actor Oscar win last weekend.
New York City has multiple parades on various dates around its five boroughs — including, on Sunday, the first St. Patrick's Day parade allowing LGBTQ+ groups to march on Staten Island.
Mayor Eric Adams last month announced the plan for the new, privately organized celebration, arranged after a local organization asked for years to join the borough's decades-old parade. That longstanding event, which does not allow groups to march under LGBTQ+ banners, happened earlier this month.
The Manhattan parade began allowing LGBTQ+ groups and symbols in 2015, after decades of protests, legal challenges and boycotts by some politicians.
Ahead of Chicago's parade, thousands of people — many decked out in green with beers in hand — gathered along the Chicago River to watch the local plumbers union boats turn the water green.
Katie and Ryan Fox, of suburban Mount Pleasant, landed a spot on a tour boat and saw one of the union boats spraying the dye in front of them.
Large, green-garbed crowds also lined the streets of Savannah for the bicentennial of a parade that began with a few dozen Irish immigrants in 1824. It's now one of the South's major annual events, much so that the Savannah area had nearly 18,000 hotel rooms booked for the weekend.
Other communities lent their own flavor to the St. Patrick's Day revelry.
In Oklahoma City, hundreds lined the streets of Stockyard City — the country's largest stockyard operation — for a parade including longhorn cattle, clowns and a man dressed as St. Patrick. The grand marshal was Anita Swift, granddaughter of American film legend John Wayne.
In San Francisco, revelers wearing dark green T-shirts and lime green feather boas watched bands, floats and buses in the city's annual St. Patrick's Day parade.
The event called for unity and aimed to bring together different cultural groups with dance, music and food.