March 18 2012

St. Patrick’s Day has been celebrated in Montreal as far back as 1759, by Irish soldiers of the Montreal Garrison. In 1817, the beginning of the Irish community here, the observance of St. Patrick’s day was marked by special dinners and the celebration of religious services.

Montreal is North America’s oldest St. Patrick’s parade, having run consecutively since 1824. This year (the 189th) was a record in terms of temperature, with it being 20 degrees which helped bolster the crowd of spectators along the route down Sainte-Catherine street from the corner of Fort to Phillips Square. The parade route was shorter than normal this year due to construction – anyone living or visiting Montreal knows the construction woes in Montreal these days.

I was a bit late getting down to the parade and by the time I reached Ste Catherine, the crowd was already many person’s deep in places. I managed however to find a less crowded spot on Aylmer street where the parade finished and some of the parade participants were routed to their waiting buses. I was actually more interested in grabbing shots of the crowd rather than the actual parade though, so wasn’t too bothered that I missed the majority of floats.

I was able to catch some of the participants though.

Seems from the above pictures that all the parade participants were in red, but actually there was a lot of Irish green (among other colors).

The crowd of spectators though were generally sporting green.

If you took shots of a Saint Patrick’s parade for your blog, feel free to add a link to your blog in the comments below.

To view images in gallery format, simply click on one of the images below.

 

Thanks for stopping by. Until next time.

– Martin

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