The First St. Patrick's Day Parade Marched in New York, Not Dublin
On March 17, 1762, Irish soldiers in the British Army marched through colonial New York in what became the world's oldest and largest St. Patrick's Day parade.
Long before there was a United States, there was a St. Patrick's Day parade in New York. On March 17, 1762 — fourteen years before the signing of the Declaration of Independence — Irish soldiers serving in the British Army, joined by Irish expatriates living in colonial New York, marched through the streets of lower Manhattan to honor the feast day of St. Patrick.
It was a modest affair, nothing like the spectacle the holiday would become. No floats, no grand marshals, no crowds a million deep. Just homesick men in uniform, marching in camaraderie along what was likely Lower Broadway, playing pipes and drums and wearing the green — a color, and a pride, that were restricted back in Ireland under British rule but could be displayed freely in the colonies.
Boston had hosted Irish celebrations earlier — the Charitable Irish Society held a St. Patrick's Day dinner there as far back as 1737 — but the 1762 New York march is recognized as the first St. Patrick's Day parade, and the seed of the world's oldest and largest. After the War of 1812, Irish fraternal and benevolent societies took over the organizing; by the mid-1800s the 69th Regiment was leading the marchers up Fifth Avenue and the Ancient Order of Hibernians had become its sponsor. Through it all, the parade kept its character: to this day it allows no floats, automobiles, or commercial displays — it remains, as it began, a marchers' parade.
What those soldiers started never stopped. The New York City St. Patrick's Day Parade now draws some 150,000 marchers and around two million spectators each March 17, stepping off at 44th Street and marching up Fifth Avenue past St. Patrick's Cathedral to 79th Street. It has run for more than 260 years, returning to full form only in 2022 after the COVID-19 pandemic.
The irony is a good one: the St. Patrick's Day parade is an American invention. The tradition of parading on March 17 was created by homesick Irish immigrants, and only later crossed back across the Atlantic — the great parades in Ireland today owe their shape to the example set on the streets of New York. Every marching band and every "everyone is Irish today" traces back to a column of soldiers walking together in 1762, far from home, refusing to let the day pass unmarked.
Photo: U.S. Navy photo by Lt. Matthew A. Stroup, public domain (via Wikimedia Commons).