I took the kids to the St. Patrick's Day parade today in Downpatrick, Co. Down (in Ireland for the non-Irish based people), the "home" of St. Patrick.

The event itself is described by the organisers:

"ST PATRICK'S DAY CROSS-COMMUNITY CARNIVAL PARADE This cross-community event, the centre-piece of the festival, will be a spectacular cavalcade of floats, bands, people in fancy dress and lots of attractions! Parade theme: 'The Sun, the Moon and the Stars'. The parade will assemble on the Ardglass Road at 1.00pm and depart at 2.30pm for the town centre where it will arrive at approximately 2.50pm. Parade route: Ardglass Road, Edward Street, John Street, Irish Street and Market Street. The closing date for parade entries is Friday 27 February 2009. Organised by Down District Council."

Anyway, I took loads of photographs and put them all up over on my photo gallery:

http://photos.pgregg.com/v/Users/pgregg/stpatrick2009/

The kids enjoyed it greatly, though the funniest moment was a local Manchester United supporters club who went the entire route to boos and chants of " FOUR - ONE ! " (in reference to Liverpool beating Manu 4-1 at the weekend).

The parade had a huge variety of themes, only a few of them Irish.  Others included an American Flag waving troop from Florida, Salsa dancers, puppeteers on stilts, Spongebob (anything with Spongebob is a win), Chinese Dragons and drummers, through to kids dressed as Star Wars characters.