ERIN GO BAR
Raise a glass, or 12, as St. Pat’s revelry returns — even at 35% — after last year’s COVID shutdown
The city’s famed St. Patrick’s Day Parade is back. But you’ll have to stay glued to the tube and a laptop.
Beginning at 8:30 a.m., the traditional Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral will be livestreamed ahead of the 260th parade, followed by a series of virtual events: one honoring first responders and essential workers, a composite celebration of past parade marching groups, an hourlong show streamed on Facebook, and a TV special with interviews of parade leaders, Timothy Cardinal Dolan and parade honorees.
In the real world, glasses will be raised, bar owners and patrons insisted late Tuesday. But there was a sense of uncertainty about how that would actually work during COVID days, when bars are restricted to 35% capacity.
“Last year I was here by myself with nobody. Last year we were closed,” said Bernie Reilly, a longtime manager at Connolly’s on W. 45th St. in Midtown.
“And I was here, dressed up as normal for St. Patrick’s Day, and nobody,” noting that he usually sports at least one shamrock from Ireland on St. Pat’s Day.
And Reilly said that’s exactly what he plans to do Wednesday — even if nobody else shows up to bear witness to his finery.
“My son called me and said it just came in from Ireland. It just arrived. So that’s the shamrock that I’ll have in my pocket tomorrow,” he said. “I will be dressed in my colors tomorrow, with my shamrock in my pocket as I’ve been doing since I left home for 41 years.”
At the Playwright Celtic Pub on Eighth Ave. in Midtown, Texas natives Ivy Ruggles, 43, and her husband J.P. Ruggles, 47, were having a beer, talking about their plans to move to New York from Atlanta — and looking foward to St. Patrick’s Day in the city.
“We don’t know what’s exactly going to happen, but we’ll see,” Ivy said. “It’s good right now in New York, allowing people to get a little bit together, to kind of feel more bonded and not so divided.”
At McMahon’s Public House in Brooklyn, across the street from the Barclays Center, there will be a full Irish menu for breakfast, lunch and dinner and “a decent amount of people” in the building on Fifth Ave. in Prospect Heights, owner Mike McMahon vowed.
“It’s starting from fresh again,” McMahon said. “It’s like opening on day one.”
“Last year, 500-600 pounds of corned beef we ended up donating to Maimonides, Downstate and Methodist” hospitals in the borough, he said. “It was very hard … we lost great people.”
McMahon said he thinks the parade could have been planned to make it safe for a live event. “There could have been social distancing,” he said. “It’s out in the fresh air. There’s no reason why not.”
Irish Haven co-owner Matt Hogan said the 2020 lockdown at the Sunset Park bar and restaurant on Fourth Ave. the day before St. Patrick’s Day “stopped festivities in their tracks.”
“Historically, it’s the best day of the year for most bars,” he said of St. Pat’s. “We never recovered properly.”
“This year, the idea is to be able to safely connect with the old-timers in the neighborhood,” he said. “It’s a chance to get together, raise a glass to neighbors. Everybody has made a sacrifice this year.”