St Patrick's Day Festivities

The St. Patrick's Day Parade proved to be a great hit again this year.

In the weeks prior to the 17th a lot of effort had been made to ensure that the event would build on the great success of last year. It was great to see new groups getting involved, most notably the Knockraha History & Heritage Association and a large number of local vintage vehicle owners. Indeed in the few days running up to St. Patrick's Day the only major worry was that the weather would prove to be less than cooperative; a worry reinforced by the fact that those who arrived to put up bunting on Tuesday afternoon had to be turned back due to wet and blustery conditions!

Having said that the morning dawned bright and sunny and those who were in the midst of all the activity in the village were lured into the optimistic expectation that maybe it might stay that way. Unfortunately this proved not to be the case. At about 10.30am the showers arrived and stayed for the duration of the parade to the village and for the first part of the performances.

Large crowds turned up at Craig's field in March for the St Patrick's Day Parade

However, the weather failed to dampen the spirits of the huge crowds of spectators who greatly enjoyed the variety of participants in the parade, which included our very own St. Patrick. Like last year the parade celebrated the variety of nationalities living in our parish, this was particularly evident by the parade of flags representing the fact that people from more than 17 different countries call our Parish "Home". On arrival to the car park in Craig's Field everyone was treated to a fabulous rendition of our national anthem courtesy of Glounthaune NS, which was followed by a display of Irish Dancing from Jacinta O'Sullivan's school of dance. At this point the rain had dried up and once the Gospel Singers, most of whom were brightly dressed in fantastic traditional African outfits, started singing everyone got into the swing of things and there was even a bit of dancing to be seen. The crowd was enjoying themselves so much that the performance continued for over an hour.

On the other side of the village lots of motor enthusiasts were having the time of their lives looking over the great selection of vintage automobiles which ranged from cars to tractors and even a combine harvester.

Music by Gospel Singers from Africa got everyone singing and dancing. The traditional costumes which were worn brought lots of colour to the festivities.