South Side Irish - South Side Irish St. Patrick's Day Parade

South Side Irish St. Patrick's Day Parade

The South Side Irish Parade was one of two annual St. Patrick's Day parades in Chicago. The South Side Irish Parade originally started in 1979. There was another South Side parade called the Southtown Parade started in the early 1950s. The original Southtown Parade route was on 79th Street from Ashland Avenue to Halsted Avenue in the St. Sabina Parish in Auburn Gresham neighborhood. The year after Richard J. Daley was elected mayor in 1955, he moved the Southtown Parade downtown and changed the name to the St. Patrick's Day Parade. On Saturday, March 17, 1979, best friends and original creators George Hendry and Pat Coakley, along with their wives, assembled 17 children (known forever in parade lore as the "Wee Folks of Washtenaw and Talman") from the West Morgan Park area. The parade route began from the 109th block of S. Washtenaw and Talman streets. Marching to the parade theme of “Bring Back St. Pat,” and an original parade float of a baby buggy covered with shamrocks and the 26 county flags of Ireland, the South Side Irish Parade was born. The theme created by Hendry and Coakley was their way of wanting to bring back the South Side parade that they had enjoyed as children. They had delivered notices along the original parade route to encourage people to participate in the parade by standing and waving from their porches. Popularity continued to grow, and in 1980 it was moved to Kennedy Park with an increased 300 participants, including children, dogs, and a bag piper. It has grown since then and was moved to its current route, down Western Avenue from 103rd Street to 115th Street through the Beverly and Morgan Park neighborhoods, in 1981. The parade, led by the Chicago Stockyard Kilty Band and held on either the Sunday before or the Sunday of St. Patrick's Day every year, it was considered to be one of the largest St. Patrick's Day community celebrations outside of Dublin. The 2008 parade was the 30th annual parade, which was held on Sunday, March 9, 2008. Of the two Chicago parades, the other being in downtown, the South Side Irish Parade was the more raucous occasion. The 2009 parade was presumably the last parade. On March 25, 2009, the South Side Irish St. Patrick's Day Parade Committee announced that they were not planning to stage a parade in its present form in March 2010. They noted that the event had become too large for the community to accommodate and the difficulty in policing such a large crowd while maintaining the dignity of the event. However the South Side Irish St. Patrick's Day Parade Committee outlined a security plan, saying they "feel will bring this great neighborhood tradition back as the family friendly event it was meant to be". The parade returned on Sunday, March 11, 2012.