From the 2016 St. Pat’s for All parade.
Feb. 26, 2018 By Nathaly Pesantez
The annual St. Pat’s for All parade kicks off in Sunnyside Sunday, marking a near two-decade run for the event.
The parade, in its 19th year, will take place on March 4 and will start on the corner of 43rd Street and Skillman Avenue. The event will feature a multitude of community groups, marching bands, puppets, stilt walkers, elected officials and Irish music and dance.
Brendan Fay, the founder of St. Pat’s for All, said that around 90 groups have already signed up for the march, including LGBT groups like Pride for Youth and the Lavender and Green Alliance; the FDNY bagpipe band; the Niall O’Leary School of Irish; and the Shannon Gaels Gaelic Athletic Association—all longtime marchers in the parade.
“This celebration on Skillman Avenue is so unique to the cultural life of this city,” Fay said.
This year’s parade will highlight immigration, similar to last year’s theme, especially as the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA) approaches the March 5 expiration deadline set by President Trump last year.
“This is an issue for all of us,” Fay said. “Especially in the borough of Queens.”
The parade’s Grand Marshals this year are Dan Barry of the New York Times and Kathleen Sullivan, a nuclear-disarmament activist.
Fay said that he gets emotional thinking about how much parade has grown since its inception in 2000, and what drove him to create the march in the first place.
“It is moving for me when I consider that this parade began out of the experience of exclusion for Irish LGBT,” he said. “I never underestimate the feeling of what it means to be welcome and included.”
St. Pat’s for All began as a mostly gay-pride parade after a group of Irish men and women were barred from marching through the St. Patrick’s Day Parade on Fifth Avenue with a gay banner.
“The St. Pat’s for All parade in Sunnyside and Woodside changed lives and changed history, and it has become this model of inclusive cultural celebrations,” Fay said. “It’s not only welcoming to LGBT groups—it’s one of the diverse inclusive cultural gatherings in New York City.”
The event will begin at 1 p.m. with a lineup of speakers, with the march beginning at 2 p.m. and ending at 58th Street and Woodside Avenue.
Interested groups can still register for the parade at the St. Pat’s for All website.
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41 Comments
white guys are the most hated people on earth, historically blamed for everything you can imagine. How bout including us guys, we need your love and support too! I want to feel included.
You’re a complete jerk.
Equality feels like oppression when you’ve relied on being first in line your whole life.
The parade is a creep show..Nothing more and nothing less!
@MAGA- Funny how it’s always the biggest creeps who call everyone else creeps. You’re obviously projecting.
MAGA you should be more tolerant of all genders, the way Trump was when he made out with Giuliani in drag
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IrE6FMpai8
Here come the Queens! Another lefty parade pretending to be an Irish parade.
Mayor DiBlasio’s deceiving ways and how he lied to the community back on April 27th, 2017 at the town hall meeting at Queens Vocational H.S. about the homeless shelter coming to our community. He rammed it up to where the sun don’t shine with these homeless shelters in our neighborhood.
Comrade DeBlasio (mayor in absentia) is a socialist s**t bag bottom feeder who got reelected by the feckless teachers union. Go NYC … down the f*****g drain.
PS Why does the Saint Patrick’s Day Parade have to include everyone???? Why can’t it just honor the people for whom the parade was created? Want an all-inclusive parade? Form your own and stop foisting your liberal fascist ideology on the rest of us.
@Chris- Who exactly was the parade created for? You’re the one who cones across fascist. “Form your own parade”?? Isn’t that what the organizers of this parade do? You seem a bit confused.
The Saint Patrick’s Day Parade was started in 1762 to celebrate the influx of Irish immigrants to the US – specifically NYC. Let the Irish have their own parade is what I am saying. The gays have Gay Pride, the Puerto Ricans have theirs, the Italians have theirs, the West Indians have theirs, etc … Should we also celebrate Easter during the Thanksgiving Day Parade?
Wrong Chris the parade had very little to do with celebrating the influx of Irish immigrants. According to nycstpatricksparade.org
The first parade was on March 17, 1762 — fourteen years before the signing of the United States Declaration of Independence. The first NYC St. Patrick’s Day Parade was comprised of a band of homesick, Irish ex-patriots and Irish military members serving with the British Army stationed in the colonies in New York. This was a time when the wearing of green was a sign of Irish pride but was banned in Ireland. In that 1762 parade, participants reveled in the freedom to speak Irish, wear green, sing Irish songs and play the pipes to Irish.
For the first few years, the NYC St. Patrick’s Day Parade was organized by military units. However, after the War of 1812, Irish fraternal and beneficial societies took over the duties of hosting and sponsoring the event. Around 1851 the “Irish” 69th Regiment began to lead the marchers. Also at that time, the Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH) became the official sponsor of the Parade as the individual societies merged under a single Grand Marshal. Today the 69th Regiment is still the first group to lead the Parade up 5th Avenue. They are followed by various Irish societies of NYC, the 32 Irish county societies, schools, colleges, Emerald societies and Irish language and nationalist societies. In the early 1990’s, the Parade was attacked for its traditional values and, in the resulting law suits, the organizer’s rights were upheld at the US Supreme Court level.
@Chris – We’re not talking about the parade on 5th avenue in Manhattan, we are talking about the parade on Skillman Avenue in Sunnyside and Woodside. So once you are identified as gay you can only form and attend gay pride parades? Hahaha You are wrong and just plain uniformed on so many levels. For one the original parade was not created “to celebrate the influx of Irish immigrants to the US”. The Irish immigrants first came to America in colonial years (pre-1776), with immigration rising in the 1820s due to poor living conditions in Ireland. The largest wave of Irish immigration came after the Great Famine in 1845 between 1.5 and 2 million Irish had left Ireland, well after the first St. Patrick’s day parade 1762 . These were overwhelmingly very poor people and “not celebrated”. Please pick up a history book and educate yourself. Strange to quote your very own post “Want an all-inclusive parade? Form your own ” That’s exactly what Brendan Fay and the rest of the people at St Pat’s for All organization did when they organized this event. You appear to be the one attempting to “foisting” an ideology on others, an uniformed and ill advised ideology at that.
Chris- The parade on Skillman was not started in 1762, you’re talking about a different event. The parade on Skillman was organized by people you said should organize their own parade. Well they did and you’re still ranting and raving. I believe you’re incorrect on the origins of the NYC parade. Is that the Fox News version? Irish immigrants were treated poorly and certainly not celebrated well maybe in the Fox News circles.
Who cares when the Irish s came here. When do they go back?
It’s called The Parade for All. dumb dumb.
All inclusive parade, lol. Was at the parade a couple of years before and all I seen was rainbow flags and Irish flags, no American flags. Yes the mayor who spent his honeymoon in Cuba just carried a rainbow and Irish flag..
There were plenty of American Flags. Sounds like you went to the biggest inauguration in history and cried about that parade too.
Yeah Sean, just like the Puerto Rican Day Parade.
This banner and flag waving blowhard posting under tree of liberty doesn’t like to extend flag waving ” liberty” to others to make their own choice. Yes tree, at parades marking ethnic pride you will see flags representing other countries like Puerto Rico, Ireland or Italy. It doesn’t mean your flag or country have been shunned. Do you have some type of inferiority complex? Come to the parade and wave your flag nobody will hurt you.
Tommy Boy…I have been to the St. Pats parade , German and even the Philippines parade in the City. The US flag is along these flags with every float and every group participating. This is to say, America is formost our country and that we are Americans. I watched this parade two years ago, no such display. Just a parade that pushes a bunch of political views, one of which is not to feel American, but to identify us as groups. I won’t be able to see the parade, but I bet you that the Mayor will only be displaying two flags, not one being that of the United States. The Parade will also follow this theme…
@tree of liberty- Always speaking of impending doom, mayor will be there not waving an American flag, political views will be pushed, people will be made “not to feel American” etc. These statements are absurd and will be proven false after the parade is marched. You will never be held to atone or account for your idiocy and will have moved onto the next right wing political talking point and it’s impending doom scenario, that again will never materialize. There is no pattern here. Hahaha
Are you jimmys little helper ?
@Brian – Who are you directing a question to?
Haha. You’re scared of rainbow flags? Don’t worry, everyone is welcome at the parade
I stand corrected, the votes are in for my comment, 41 down and one up.. that probably was my one vote to, lol… i was wrong and take back what I said. As for Jimmy Boy, I have no comment. My parents taught me right, and that was to ignore people who use words such as stupid, jerk and idiot as you do with people u may disagree with. I will now be waiting on our mayor to see if he will be waving 3 flags or 2… I will have fun and will not be taking it serious either way. Cheers to Green beer.
Stop using my screen name you weasel.
“Everyone is welcome”…HaHaHa!!!!Are pro life groups welcome to march?..How about people that advocate protecting our borders?..Is the NRA welcome to march?..Trump supporters?
Have you ever been to a parade?
Precisely!!!!! Just said same to gf!!!!!
Hey Tree of Liberty – pic of American Flag right at the head of the parade. It’s OK, dude, we understand. You can’t see much from your mother’s basement. Step away from the computer, come outside. It’s nice out here. Promise. Oh, and MAGA?
There were several pro-life people with signs in the parade, and no one gave them a hard time. https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B7C4GLaknsAdTW12ZUdVOUZycGJ6bUZRWUtUOHpwRnZ0WEJz
Hey Airbnb, what does living in moms basement have to do with this. To answer your question. I did live in my mother’s basement. I have since moved out some time ago when I was 45.
Any updates on the gender identification of each of the Grand Marshalls?
Yep yep yeah yeah yeah yeah
can straight white guys attend?
Bill de blasio will lead the homeless contingent.
I’ll be there, wearing a plaid skirt.
This straight white guy will be there with his wife and kids, happily supporting the parade for all. But then again I don’t have a fake persecution complex.
You have no buisness there unless you are a victim of something .
You tell ’em BJ, you’re a real man. No one tells you what to think! Brian knows what you are up to!
Brian- I’ve been a victim of your ridiculous comments, does that count?