A St Patrick’s Day to remember
In 2002 before myself and Mary left England and Basingstoke where we lived for 29 years, we organised a coach from the Basingstoke Irish Club for the St Patrick’s Day Parade in London.
It was a beautiful sunny day when forty-three excited people assembled outside the Irish Club to board the coach for London and the festivities ahead. Ten minutes into the journey we put on a tape of Sean Wilson and everyone joined in the spirit of the day by singing along with Sean. We distributed St Patrick’s Day badges which we had arranged to get over from Fermoy. We gave out sheets of Irish ballad song words so everyone was well equipped to celebrate the national feast day in style.
We arrived in London with plenty of time to spare. We had tea, coffee, chips and burgers at McDonalds before entering Westminster for Mass at noon. The Mass itself was beautiful with the Wexford Male Choir in full voice. Mass was celebrated by the auxiliary Bishop of London. The singing of Hail Glorious St Patrick at the end filled the cathedral and definitely brought a lump to my throat as it reminded me of the time in St Patrick’s Church when this hymn was sung by our own marvellous choir in Fermoy.
After Mass everyone poured out into the wonderful sunshine and there we spotted Gerry Traynor and Sean Keating holding up the Basingstoke Irish Society flag. We assembled behind our group and joined the parade. It was marvellous to see so many Irish people sporting the colours and flags of the different counties in Ireland.
At this point I must make it clear this was not a day just for the Irish. This wonderful day was being celebrated by every nationality, as could be seen by the very large crowds gathered along the route of the parade. The route taken was along Victoria - where I once served as a post office clerk - Whitehall and into Trafalgar Square. It was thronged.
We were lucky enough to get near the stage and enjoyed the music for the afternoon. It consisted of the Wexford Male Choir, Mary Coughlan, Finbarr Furey and The Three Tenors – it was marvellous.
Sadly, we had to leave before The Dubliners came on stage. We joined our coach in Pall Mall just as the rain started to fall, but by now nobody minded, after all it is traditional for the shamrock to get wet at some time during the day. On our journey back to Basingstoke and the Irish Club we resumed our singing to some more Irish tapes and everyone agreed that a great day was had by all.
Myself and Mary were so pleased that the day turned out well. We prayed for good weather and thank God we got it. We finished the evening at the club. Over 200 attended, we had a band from Ireland, brilliant singing, dancing, good conversation, excellent, we didn’t finish until 1am. There were some people from Fermoy at the club and we sang ‘My Home in Fermoy’. Definitely a St Patrick’s Day to remember!