NEW YORK (AP) – St. Patrick’s Day celebrations across the country are back after a two-year hiatus, including the nation’s largest in New York City, in a sign of growing hope that the worst of the coronavirus pandemic is over.
The holiday served as a key marker in the progress of the outbreak, with parades celebrating Irish heritage among the first major public events to be held in 2020. An ominous acceleration of infections is cascading quickly and widely.
The full return of the New York Parade on Thursday coincided with the grand opening of the city. Large mask and vaccination rules have been lifted recently.
The city’s famous Fifth Avenue was overgrown with green as hordes of revelers marched on sidewalks in the humid sky to take part in the tradition for the first time in two years.
Kathy Brucia, 65, who is Irish and dressed in green, including a shamrock on her cheek, has been attending the parade for more than three decades – except for the last two years.
The updates come as the US enters its third year of the coronavirus pandemic. (CNN, CBS, KSBY, STANFORD MEDICINE, TWITTER @BARACKOBAMA)
“The pandemic,” she said as the first marching band passed on Thursday morning. “I do not think it’s over. But I think a lot of people feel like, wow, we could finally go to a parade and not worry. But I think everyone needs to worry.”
The day is of great importance for a city that is still rolling from the eruption.
“Psychologically, it means a lot,” said Sean Lane, president of the parade’s organizing group. “New York really needs this.”
Mike Carty, the Irish-born owner of Rosie O’Grady’s, a restaurant and pub in the theater district, has agreed.
“This is the best thing that has happened to us in two years,” he said. “We need the business, and this is where it really started.”
The south’s largest st. thousands still thirsty for Mardi Gras.
Tori Purvis, 46, arrived before sunrise to claim a spot near the start of the parade along with her 3-year-old son, Tristan, still wearing his pajamas, decorated with leprechaun hats and rainbows. Purvis said she has been living in St. Louis since childhood. Celebrating Patrick’s Day in Savannah, and the only years she remembers not showing up were 2020 and 2021, when the pandemic forced the parade to cancel.
“I’m not against masks or anything, but it’s nice to see people out there without masks and enjoying their time,” Purvis said. “It’s like a little bit of normalcy coming back.”
Over the weekend, Chicago turned its river green after doing so without much fanfare last year and skipping the tradition altogether during the initial virus attack.
Boston, home to one of the country’s largest Irish enclaves, is holding its annual parade Sunday after a two-year absence.
Several communities in Florida, one of the first states to reopen its economy, have also returned their parades. The state chose St Patrick’s Day two years ago to close restaurants, bars and nightclubs – a dramatic Republican movement that underscores the fear and insecurity of the times.
New York’s Parade – the largest and oldest of them all, first held in 1762 – runs 35 blocks along Fifth Avenue, along St. Patrick’s Cathedral and along Central Park.
It is held as the city emerges from a discouraging battle with the highly contagious Omicron variant, which killed more than 4,000 people in New York City in January and February.
New infections and hospitalizations have been declining since then, prompting city officials to illuminate the procession green.
On Thursday, Mayor Eric Adams began his pub crawl early, raising a Guinness bar while visiting one of his city’s Irish establishments.
He compared the pandemic to the terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center.
“COVID is not terrorism, but it has brought terror,” said Mayor WAXQ-FM. “And now we are at 9/12 moment where we are in St. Gallen. Marching off Patrick’s Day Parade. We stand up and we say that New York is stronger, better and we are ready to open up back to our city.
To continue the tradition, the organizers of 2020 and 2021 quietly held small parades at St.
Thousands of people turned up at this year’s parade, though many New Yorkers remain appalled by massive, potentially virus-spreading public events.
The holiday commemorates the death of the patron saint of Ireland more than 15 centuries ago, but has developed into a monetary earner of Irish culture for restaurants and pubs.
But there was also solemnity. Thursday’s procession stopped to remember the dead – including those killed during the 9/11 terrorist attacks, first responders killed in the duty and the thousands of pandemic victims.
Bishop Edmund Whalen officiated outside St. Peter’s Cathedral.
“We Irish know all too well the injustice of the rule and the oppression of those who have tried to establish their rule over us,” he said. “And that is why we pray for the people of Ukraine who are suffering this day from the injustices of war.”
______
Associated Press writer Russ Bynum contributed from Savannah, Georgia.
Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Add Comment