Chapel St. Goes Green For St. Patrick’s Day Parade

While expounding on the near-perfect symmetry of his outfit, David Weselcouch paused mid-sentence.

“Wait, hey — St. Patrick is going by,” he called out from his station on Chapel Street. 

The occasion was Sunday’s Greater New Haven St. Patrick’s Day Parade, the largest single-day spectator event in the state of Connecticut, and everyone, it seemed, was Irish. 

Even the traffic lines.

Among the first units was the famed Stony Creek Fife & Drum Corps, founded in 1888, their fifes shrilling and bass drums thundering in the crisp March air.

The pols were out.

So were the vendors.

Soon came the haunting strains of bagpipes from the Connecticut Firefighters Pipes and Drums, adding a solemn sense of occasion to the festivities. 

Next was Lady Blaze and her motley crew of jugglers, hula hoopers, and fire eaters.

“Stay away from the fire,” she called out, while swinging around two lighted tethers.

Lady Blaze, also known as Lauren Beth Stein, said she’s been performing for 20 years. 

“We also do stilts, roller skates, and LED,” she said, as a member of her troupe casually swallowed a blazing torch of fire before swigging some water. Someone in the crowd gasped. ​“Also team-building.”

At Chapel and High, the extended O’Sullivan family congregated in front of a banner in memory of Michael S. O’Sullivan.

Erin Patricia O’Sullivan said her father, who died last August at 63, was ​“a union man for the Insulators Union, Local #33 of Wallingford, and also a member of the Ancient Order of Hibernians.” 

“He came to this parade every year to this exact spot,” his son, Robert Emmett Mahon O’Sullivan, said. 

At that moment, there was a shout from a young boy standing nearby. ​“Mom, Mom. Look.”

Horses saddled with riders were clopping past the British Art Museum.

LaShawn Robinson was walking alongside the equine complement.

“We are Ebony Horsewomen from Hartford, the first Black equestrian riding center in Connecticut,” said Robinson, a riding instructor with the nonprofit.

“We try to perform in a lot of parades but we also do a lot of stuff in the community with youth, families, military veterans,” she said. ​“We do equine therapy and therapeutic riding, that kind of thing.”

Patricia Kelly, the nonprofit’s founder and CEO was driving a van just behind.

“Since 1983, we’ve been working with inner-city youth,” she said through her window. ​“We start them at five, and then they move progressively, and they stay with us for life. We have them do chores, care for the horses, compete in dressage, but it’s never about the ribbons.” 

On the Green side of Chapel, Bonnie Szturma was holding a sign. ​“Fightin’ Cancer at the New Haven Parade with the Luck of the Irish,” it read.

“My last name is Polish, that’s his name,” she said, pointing at her husband, ​“but my maiden name is Moroney.”

Further down Chapel, where the parade made its final turn onto Church Street, Andrea Perry and William Mitchell watched the Hillhouse High dancers, broad smiles on their faces. 

“Incredible, right?” Mitchell said.

“My grandmother was Irish, Portuguese and Irish,” Perry said, ​“so I try to go every year.”

“And this year, I can’t believe how nice and friendly everyone is,” she went on. ​“I’ve lived in New Haven all my life, and nine, ten years ago, there was another vibe. This is different. This is unbelievable.” 

Another woman on Church had a similar reaction, it seemed, as the dancers twirled and whirled past. 

“That’s what I’m talking about,” she shouted, moving to the music.