St Patrick's Day Liverpool

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm........you would think with Liverpool's history of Irish immigration and somewhat large Irish community that Liverpool would have a rather large, colourful and successful St Patrick's Day Parade????????

But it doesn't.......................

So why is that? well, the answers are numerous, but interact with each other and the result is no parade.

Firstly, there was a parade right until the late 60's early 70's.......run mainly by the Catholic Church. But of course, there was a fierce war in Ireland at the time and the Church thought it best not to organise anything, fearing that what was happening in the north of Ireland may happen in Liverpool. So fast forward to 1996. Irish Centre Cultural Co-operative (or whatever it was) decided to revive the parade and tie it in with the twinning of the city of Dublin with the city of Liverpool. Liverpool loyalist/orangemen and right wing racists very unhappy with this and decide to stop the parade in its tracks on Hope street. Stand off ensures and the parade marches around the block. As a result, some Irish form a flute marching band and since then there has been some form of 'parade' on St Patrick's day ever since.However, no where near the size of the New York, Dublin or Boston or even the Leeds parade has any Liverpool parade been............

It is true that since 1996 numerous 'organisations' have tried to stage a parade. However, none have ever managed to suceed, especially at involving the corporate/business end of the market..........and what also makes it difficult is that continually since 1996 any 'parade' becomes the focus of loyalists and orange order members, who generally turn up and spit hateful racist and sectarian abuse at whoever is marching...............

And the sad fact about all of this is that the centre of Liverpool is generally jumping for St Patrick's Day with the city centre pubs packed with people and nearly every pub fastooned in green, white and orange. It has to be said that thanks to Guinness, the profile of St Patrick's day has vastly improved over the past 10 years, with the company ploughing a huge amount of money into advertsing the day itself. It is probably fair to state that outside of New York, Boston and Dublin, Liverpool has the potential to stage one of the biggest St Patrick's Day celebrations in the world. It's a sad fact that it doesn't..........................