St Patrick's Parade Glasgow

The Scotsman

St Patrick's Parade Glasgow  St Patrick’s Day Parade takes place in Glasgow, from Blythswood Square to the Merchant City, as part of a family fun day celebrating the connection between Ireland and Glasgow. The first St Patrick’s Day parade in the city in recent memory was led by All Ireland marching band winners St Roch’s from Royston. The route took in West George Street, Nelson Mandela Place, then George Square and down Montrose Street and Ingram Street to Candleriggs and Bell Street. The parade then joined a family fun day at Merchant Square. Guests of honour at the event were Ceann Craige, a 2024 All Ireland Camogie Finalist, Jerry O’Donovan, the Consul General of Ireland, and Jacqueline McLaren, the Lord Provost of Glasgow. St Roch's Marching Band won the All-Ireland title at the Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann in Wexford last year and led today’s parade. They are the first band from outside of Ireland to win the title.

Transcript

00:00Queen Anna, Queen of the clans, Go Mary Marshall!

00:30Roshan Andrews, and I am in the St. Rock's marching band.

00:58So it's not the first St. Patrick's Day Parade, but it's been the first in a few years and

01:01it's the first kind of one that we've been involved in from a kind of Irish traditional

01:06music standpoint.

01:07There's quite a lot of different people and different groups that are involved today from

01:12Irish music and cultist branches to Irish dancing classes, Irish dancing schools and

01:17sports clubs and things like that.

01:19So we've got some delegates from the Irish government and from the Scottish government

01:24and Glasgow City Council with us as well.

01:26So it's a full family affair and a good day out as well.

01:29It's really important to our marching band, so we formed about this time last year and

01:32we formed as a group of people who don't necessarily play the instruments.

01:37Some of us do play the instruments in the marching band, but we also play other instruments

01:41and we also usually sit down when we're playing music.

01:43So this was a challenge for us and we decided to go in for a competition last year, which

01:47was the All Ireland Music Competitions and we won it.

01:50So this is a good chance for us to play in our own city and show off and have a good

01:56time with all of our friends as well.

01:58I would love for the parade to grow into a bigger event.

02:00I think you see it across the world.

02:02You've got the likes of New York and London and I'm sure there's loads of parades across

02:06the world for St Patrick's Day and we've not really been able to do that here in Glasgow

02:10so it would be really nice for it to continue and grow and develop into something that's

02:13just part of our cultural heritage here in the city.

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