Nora Grace-Flood Photo
Shamrocks, gingers, fifers and fedoras filled Chapel Street Sunday afternoon as New Haven’s annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade proudly recovered from a two-year pandemic hiatus.
Thousands of people lined up from Sherman Avenue to the city Green to cheer on marching units, get out of the house, drink beer, and dream of cabbage and corned beef dinners.
Ed and Karen O'Brien with dog Rudy.
New Haven’s is the sixth oldest St. Patrick’s parade in the nation, with roots tracing back to 1842. Sunday’s event brought families and friends from across the state together not just to pack in a punch of Irish pride before St. Patrick’s day, but to congregate as a broader community following years of canceled holidays and mass isolation.
The Brennan Lucey Irish Dance Academy.
Falun Dafa.
While girls in cardigans from Milford’s Brennan Lucey Irish Dance Academy showed off their steps, New Haven’s Village Drill Squad stamped the streets, and members of Connecticut’s Falun Dafa Association moved with might.
In addition to observing live music and dance — including bagpipes and multiple marching bands — Sunday’s audience saluted military members, applauded News 8’s storm team, saw stormtroopers from New Haven’s Star Wars Club, and witnessed Survivors of Homicide share their anti-gun violence message.
A salute from the crowd for the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps.
“Where’s your potato and your Lucky Charms?” onlookers shouted at those marching.
Pat and Debby Sharron, Nancy Graham, and Don Sharron.
“Times are better all together,” Don Sharron, whose family of over 40 have been attending the event together for the past four decades, said with a smile.
Sharron, who grew up in Fair Haven and then went on to serve in the navy, said his favorite parts of the day were “the bagpipers and the military.”
After the parade parted, Sharron reported, it was “back to mom’s house for corned beef and cabbage dinner.”
