Drogheda Brass Band pictured marching to Mass on Saint Patrick's Day in 1958. It would be another six years before the first parade as we might know it today took place in the town.
The first Saint Patrick’s Day Parade in Drogheda took place in 1964 at the suggestion of Joe Shiels of the Drogheda Brass Band. Since then, apart from cancellations due to heavy snow in 1979 and Covid in 2019 -2021, it has been a much-loved public event in the town’s calendar.
There were several precursors to the parade including the “An Tostal” festival in 1954 when the classical actor Anew McMaster sailed up the Boyne dressed as Saint Patrick to a tumultuous welcome by the townspeople who lined the banks of the Boyne.
In 1958 an Irish Week was held in Drogheda to celebrate Gaelic culture to coincide with the national holiday and The Drogheda Brass Band marched and performed through the new municipal housing estates on both sides of the town.
The Drogheda Corporation traditionally attended Mass fully robed at Saint Peter’s Church in West Street and they were joined from 1958 onwards by the local company of the FCA, who would march to the Mass.
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In 1963 Joe Shiels, the Secretary of the Drogheda Brass Band, announced that in 1964, the Band would host a “Saint Patricks Day Parade for all the people”.
The Drogheda Parade was born, and, thanks to Joe’s and the Drogheda Brass Band’s initiative, it will celebrate its 60th Anniversary next year. They deserve great plaudits for their establishment of the St. Patrick’s Day Parade which the people of Drogheda look forward to every year.
The late Joe Shiels whose suggestion it was to hold a Saint Patrick's Day Parade in Drogheda.
Since then, the parade has become a popular and colourful fixture in the calendar of the town and has become as much a part of Drogheda as Saint Laurence’s Gate.
The local media have always supported it as the records illustrate in these following extracts:
Congratulations also, to the many committees who organised the Parade over the years, you all deserve great credit and well done Joe Shields.