An emerald green wave energized New York on St. Patrick's Day

The New York City Saint Patrick’s Day Parade is a long-standing and very much beloved celebration across the Big Apple. Boston held its first St. Patrick’s Day parade in 1737, followed by New York City in 1762  (fourteen years before the signing of the Declaration of Independence), home today of the largest celebrations.

The event is held annually on March 17th at precisely 11:00 AM in honor of St. Patrick, the Patron Saint of both Ireland and the Archdiocese of New York. Every year the parade route goes up Fifth Avenue, beginning at East 44th Street and ending at East 79th Street, and approximately 150,000 people march in it, drawing about 2 million euphoric spectators.

From its inception and right up to the present, the New York City Saint Patrick’s Day Parade has been run entirely by volunteers, many of whom come from generations of families dedicated to the organization of the parade. 

Traditionally, every year a prominent member of the Irish community is appointed Grand Marshal of the celebrations. The 2023 edition saw the role performed by Kevin J. Conway, Vice Chairman of Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, a global private equity firm known for blending investment skills with operating capabilities to build great businesses. He joined CD&R in 1994 and served as Managing Partner from 2004 to 2016, as well as a member of the Management Committee. Conway is the Chairman of the Investment Committee at CD&R, a position he has held for over twenty years. In his 28 years at the firm, Conway has helped build a leading global private equity firm, been active in many of the firm’s organizational initiatives, and worked closely with the chief executive officer on all aspects of CD&R’s operations.

The Irish community is one of the most prominent in New York as well as across the nation and has always generously and admirably contributed with its men and women to law enforcement, first responders, and many civil and public organizations, bringing a decisive contribution to the betterment and advancement of our beloved country.

The numerous delegations that marched in the parade offered a great display of the variety and richness of this community involvement.

But St. Patrick’s is also special because of the enthusiasm and the brightness that is able to pull out of people of any descent and origin, Irish or not.

This year was no different. A cheerful and colorful crowd filled streets and pubs, decorated for the occasion, throughout the five boroughs.

But where does this tradition come from, and who was Patrick, the man you became a saint and the patron of a nation?

St. Patrick’s Day, the feast day (March 17) of St. Patrick, patron saint of Ireland. Born in Roman Britain in the late 4th century, he was kidnapped at the age of 16 and taken to Ireland as a slave. He escaped but returned about 432 CE to convert the Irish to Christianity. By the time of his death on March 17, 461, he had established monasteries, churches, and schools. 

Many legends grew up around him: for example, he drove the snakes out of Ireland and used the shamrock to explain the Trinity. Ireland came to celebrate his day with religious services and feasts.

It was emigrants, particularly to the United States, who transformed St. Patrick’s Day into a largely secular holiday of revelry and celebration of things Irish. Cities with large numbers of Irish immigrants, who often wielded political power, staged the most extensive celebrations, which included elaborate parades. Since 1962 Chicago has colored its river green to mark the holiday. (Although blue was the color traditionally associated with St. Patrick, green is now commonly connected with the day.) 

Irish and non-Irish alike commonly participate in the “wearing of the green”—sporting an item of green clothing or a shamrock, the Irish national plant, in the lapel. Corned beef and cabbage are associated with the holiday, and even beer is sometimes dyed green to celebrate the day. Although some of these practices were eventually adopted by the Irish themselves, they did so largely for the benefit of tourists.

In America, St. Patrick’s Day, on March 17, has long been commemorated with rollicking festivities, but until recent decades, the holiday, which honors Ireland’s patron saint, was traditionally a more solemn occasion on the Emerald Isle.

The man for whom St. Patrick’s Day is named was born into an aristocratic family in Roman Britain around the end of the fourth century. As a teenager, he was kidnapped by Irish pirates and taken to Ireland, where he was held as a slave for a number of years. He eventually escaped the island, only to return later as a missionary and convert part of the population to Christianity. Centuries after his death, which some sources cite as March 17, 461, although the exact date is unknown, Patrick became the patron saint of Ireland, and March 17 became a holy day of obligation for the nation’s Catholics.

Thanks to Irish immigrants in the United States and elsewhere, St. Patrick’s Day evolved from a religious holiday into a secular celebration of all things Irish. The first St. Patrick’s Day parade was held in New York City in the 1760s, by Irishmen serving there in the British military. During the 19th century, when Irish Catholic immigrants faced discrimination in Protestant-majority America, St. Patrick’s Day parades became an opportunity to show strength in numbers. 

Today, with some 35 million Americans claiming to be primarily or partially of Irish descent, making Irish ancestry the second-most commonly reported in the United States, after German, the wearing of the green on March 17 is still going strong. Australia and Canada are among other locales with long-standing St. Paddy’s Day traditions.

Meanwhile, back in the old country where, until the 1970s, pubs were closed on St. Patrick’s Day, the Irish are catching up to their counterparts across the pond when it comes to revelry. Since the mid-1990s, the government, in part to promote tourism and boost the economy, has sponsored a multi-day St. Patrick’s Festival in Dublin, featuring a parade and a variety of performances and activities; there are similar events in other sections of the country as well.

Photos and articles by Joseph Ralph Fraia - @jrfstudio - jrfstudio.com