Seeing green: Worcester celebrates the season with St. Patrick's Parade
WORCESTER — It’s not often that the music of Irish folk band The Dubliners, marching bands and Uilleann pipes can all harmonize even over the rumble of 18-wheeler trucks and revving motorcycles.
That is unless all those sounds come from the St. Patrick’s Day Parade.
Sunday, thousands lined Park Avenue for the annual Worcester County St. Patrick’s Day Parade, where green dominated among the variety of colors donned by about 100 groups and organizations.
The parade was preceded by the annual Guinness Celtic 5K road race which shot off at 11 a.m.
Results Guinness Celtic 5K
At about noon, the parade started at the intersection where Park Avenue meets Mill Street, marching on all the way to where Park Avenue hits Highland Street.
From Webster Square to Elm Park, people packed both sides of the street as a two-mile long stream pushed through with Irish folk music, tap dancers, local high school marching bands, bagpipers, campaigning politicians, city professional sports team rosters like the WooSox and Railers, more than 30 floats, military flag bearers and color guards.
Local businessman Richard Smalley also marched through Park Avenue as the parade’s grand marshal. A Worcesterite with Irish roots who is best known for his entrepreneurial ventures in the automobile industry, he was honored at the parade this year also for his charitable work with veterans and pediatric cancer patients.
Spectators crowded the beginning of the parade where marchers took the turn into Park Avenue for the first time, some of them mesmerizing Chase Korhonen, a 6 year old who stood at the edge of the sidewalk watching a high school jazz band drumming by.
Korhonen was at the parade with his parents John and Beth and younger sister Liv, saying the bands were his favorite act of the parade, although adding he also “loved the candy.”
The lineup of marchers this year featured 13 bands, tens of marching groups, about 30 floats and the Melha Shriners.
“We've done this as a family for the last three years,” said Beth. “We live in Littleton, but we make the 30-minute drive for the kids.”
Further down Park Avenue, the parking lot at Wendy’s Restaurant was swarmed with a sea of green as spectators watched from camping chairs with family members.
The green had spilled over across the street, where Taylor Laflamme and two of her Clark University classmates had walked over from the school to check out the parade.
“I’m from a really small town in Maine and we don’t have anything like this anywhere close,” said Laflamme, 23. “I really love the Irish dancers, the little ones.”
From bars lining Park Avenue, patrons often ran out to catch a fistful of candy as marchers dressed like leprechauns showed their generosity to those who called out for their attention along the sidewalks.
Walking along with honking trucks and waving dancers, some marchers lopped bead necklaces over the heads of people leaning over the guardrails.
Others even got their hands on green koozies.
John Francis, 33, stood near where Chandler Street meets the main course of the parade, applauding every group marching by him.
“I’ve got a lot of friends marching here today,” said Francis later. “We’re all local, homegrown boys and I came out here to show support for them.”
Francis, of Worcester, even knew some of the participants, as was the case with his buddy, Nate, who held a Leitrim’s Pub banner.
“I’m going there right after this!” exclaimed Francis out loud.
That was the case with many, who at about 2 p.m., just as the two-mile march reached the end, headed for nearby restaurants and bars.
Later in the day, a Worcester Police Department officer said that no arrests or disturbances arose throughout the parade.
This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Seeing green: Worcester celebrates the season with St. Patrick's Parade
