Thousands line Brum’s Emerald Mile for St Patrick’s Day parade

Thousands of people came out to marvel at the St Patrick’s Day parade in Birmingham yesterday.

Digbeth High Street was awash with green and gold as festivities launched early in the morning with bright costumes and colour, clearly starting as they meant to go on.

Sunday began with the city’s first ever St Patrick’s fun run along the Emerald Mile, before the opening of a fairground and street food stands in the Irish Quarter.

The parade – the main event – set off from Camp Hill at noon, snaking its way along Digbeth High Street towards Selfridges and St Martin’s Church, and showcasing everything from traditional Irish dancers, youth groups, community clubs and floats to carnival costumes, Chinese dragons and plenty of drums, pipes and up-beat music.

Among the giant puppets, the flag bearers, the vintage motors, the smartly-dressed bands and the cross-cultural expressions of a great city, the Lord Mayor of Birmingham – Cllr Carl Rice – waved from the top of a VIP double-decker bus, greeting the thousands who were lining the streets to watch the parade go by.

Birmingham annually holds the largest St Patrick’s Day parade in Britain, with the parade covering a two-mile route through the city centre. According to organisers, it is the third biggest parade in the world, after Dublin and New York.

The Birmingham City Council can no longer afford to fund the city’s St Patrick’s Day celebrations, in whole or part, and so organisers rely on fundraising and corporate sponsors to keep the event going. This year, surface roadworks company Kiely Bros. sponsored the event.

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The religious and cultural celebration of St. Patrick’s Day is on Friday 17th March.

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