St Patrick's Day Parade: Irish Pride!

 The Irish have a huge "presence" in New York City.  The largest wave of Irish immigrants came as a result of the Great Famine in 1845, when 1.5 to 2 million Irish left their homeland.  By 1850, they made up one-quarter of the population of New York City. Today, about 5.5% of the city's population has Irish heritage. They are particularly associated with the police and fire departments. Hundreds of the city's 35,000 police marched.

 The parade allows no floats, autos, or exhibits.  Instead, the street was filled with high school bands, bagpipe bands, military bands, police bands . . . even the sanitation workers had an impressive band.  There were Revolutionary War bands and Civil War bands. We saw a lot of GREEN and hundreds of bagpipes.  

 The parade moves along Fifth Avenue from 44th Street, up past St Patrick's Cathedral, and on up to 80th Street.  We walked across Central Park to find a good spot to watch at about 65th Street. It was a blustery day, but Irish enthusiasm prevailed. There were over 150,000 marchers, all proud of their Irish heritage.