A Who's Who of Grand Marshals

Grand Marshals of St. Patrick's Day Parades across the nation

In the Caribbean, St. Patrick’s Day celebrations continue for an entire week on the volcanic island of Montserrat. Montserrat, whose people are a mix of African and Irish, is the only nation in the world other than Ireland that considers St. Patrick’s Day a national holiday.    The celebration includes parades, pub crawls, feasts, and  festivals.

This year’s St. Patrick’s Day celebration in Sydney, Australia, the  “Book of Kells” will serve as the inspiration for the costumes, groups, music and floats within the parade.  This annual event is one of the largest in the world, comparable to the parades of New York and Ireland.

This year, the Irish Hungarian Business Cycle organized all of their Hungarian Irish groups for the first St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Budapest. The theme for the parade is “Green For The Day,” as all are welcomed to come out and celebrate Irish Culture.

St. Patrick’s Day celebrations and parades are also held in Greece, Turkey, Dubai, Rome, Germany, New Zealand, Great Britain, and many other countries. The month of March continues to show that St. Patrick and Irish culture have had quite an influence around the world.

UPDATE: In the print edition of Irish America, we listed the Shanghai St. Patrick's Day Parade as one of the international celebrations. The parade, and the four-day Féile Shanghai festival it was a part of, have since been canceled due to major crackdowns by the government and police force on public gatherings throughout China.

The ban on public gatherings and any media coverage of them began after word began circulating online of a "Jasmine Revolution," which apparently encouraged people to take "afternoon strolls" as a sign of resistance against the Communist ruling party. 

A member of the parade committee issued the following statement to the Irish Times, under the condition of anonymity: "The parade is off. We were told by the Public Security Bureau we could not have a public gathering. We're bitterly disappointed as we spent two months working on it, but that's life."

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Nster.com