A beautifully coloured butterfly on Laurence Street during the Drogheda Pride Parade. Photos: Andy Spearman.
Yesterday morning’s deluge of rain meant that, although the rain had stopped by midday when the Drogheda Pride parade started, there were few enough onlookers.
Undaunted though, those taking part were in festival mode and this, combined with their colourful clothes, certainly brightened up a very dull day.
Just after midday the parade set off from King Street car park and made its way along William Street led by the special Garda car decked out in the colours of the rainbow.
The Grand Marshall was Patrick Blue from Balbriggan who is something of a legend in LGBTQ circles and was of course immaculately turned out for the occasion, his make-up alone must have taken hours to apply!
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Patrick seemed a bit nervous at first but he soon got into the swing of things and was almost falling out of the DDS4OP trishaw he was being transported in such was his eagerness to exchange greetings with anybody and everyone he saw.
The crowd, although not huge, was growing all the time and by the time the colourful parade turned out of Duke Street into West Street there was quite a gathering of people outside St. Peter’s and many more sheltering in the entrance to Drogheda Town Centre.
Bizarrely, Batman and two female super heroes (above) emerged from the crowd outside St. Peter’s to cheer the marchers along. With these figures on their side the battle for equality is surely won already
Froom there right up to the Tholsel and up Laurence Street crowds cheered as the colourful parade passed by like the perfect rainbow on a rainy day promising better and more enlightened times ahead.
There were one or two homophobic remarks emanating from the crowd but hey, intolerance and ignorance will probably be around for ever and these comments certainly didn’t spoil proceedings.
In fact they serve to underline the need for a show of solidarity between civilised people of all creeds, colours, nationalities and sexual orientations, to gather together to celebrate the human race in all its diversity. As our mayor said on Friday at the Pride launch, “Vive la Difference!”