Marching with the Newport St. Patrick’s Day Parade
The parade has stepped off every year, rain or shine, since 1956.
Photograph by Andrew Brooks/Discover Newport
Newport today might look different from the ocean town that drew Irish immigrant workers in the early 1800s, but the heritage marches on in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade. Every year since 1956, rain or shine, the parade has set out from City Hall and wound its way to St. Augustin Church in the Fifth Ward. Chairman Dennis Sullivan even remembers one year when participants marched through a blizzard. “At the heyday we had up to nine bagpipe bands,” he recalls. Only during the pandemic was it temporarily suspended (and even then bagpipers paid a visit to the local pubs). This year, Sullivan looks forward to the parade reclaiming its former glory, complete with the Ancient Order of Hibernians, the Rhode Island Highlanders Pipe Band and other local groups. Sullivan, who grew up in the Fifth Ward, recommends stepping into one of the pubs along the parade route, particularly one with a parade poster indicating its support. “I’ve heard plenty of marriage stories where people say I met my wife here on St. Patrick’s Day,” he says. This year’s parade steps off on Saturday, March 15, at 11 a.m. newportirish.com
