Kansas City’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade: A Tradition of Irish Pride

One of the nation’s largest St. Patrick’s Day parades is held each year in Missouri’s heartland on the streets of downtown Kansas City. The parade has a long history that dates back to 1873 when the first parade began as an impromptu celebration of the Irish saint’s feast day at St. Patrick’s Church. Following a High Mass celebrated by Irish born priest, Father James Dunn, parishioners exited the church to begin a procession down the outside street. Participants joined the parade on each block and included members of the St. Vincent De Paul Society, Children of Mary, the St. Aloysius Band, the McGee Hook and Ladder Company, 100 juveniles of West Kansas City, and many others. The procession wound down toward downtown Kansas City with a stop at St. Teresa’s Academy where the sound of voices raised in Irish song joined the merriment of the day. The first parade ended at the then new Annunciation Church.

After such a success, the St. Patrick’s Day parade became an annual event and each year grew larger. The parade added participants with each passing year. Some of the groups that marched in the parades during the 1870’s and 1880’s included the members of the Kansas City police department, the Hibernian Knights, German Catholic Society, Knights of St. Patrick, labor unions by the score, school children, and many others. The title of Grand Marshal was an honor.

Kansas City’s multi-ethnic heritage has Irish roots and in the early years of the parade more than half the city’s fire fighters were born in Ireland. The entire region appealed to large numbers of Irish immigrants with rich farmland outside the city and available jobs.

Increasing arrivals of residents from other nations and locations were just one of several factors that brought the early St. Patrick’s Day parades to an end. March 17, 1891 was the last big parade for more than eighty years. Rising anti-Catholic sentiments and changing demographics were two of the main reasons why the parade was halted. Public approval and support for the parade had faltered as well.

Although Kansas City residents celebrated St. Paddy’s day by wearing green, drowning the shamrock, wearing shamrocks, and drinking green beer for decades, there was no parade until March 1974. A year earlier, businessman Daniel Thomas Hogarty had made plans to revive the St. Patrick’s Day parades on the 100th anniversary of the first parade. In 1974, Hogarty along with other businessman, secretaries, and shoppers marched along a one and a half block long route in the first St. Patrick’s Day parade in many years.

Pride in an Irish heritage remains strong in the metro KC area and history seemed to resurrect with the small parade. By the late 1970’s the parade was once again a local tradition and the event relocated downtown near parts of the original route. In 1978, 35,000 people attended the parade but by 1999, the numbers had risen into hundreds of thousands. Today, estimated crowds are at 500,000 and more in the yearly event.

The Kansas City St. Patrick’s Day parade has become the biggest event in downtown Kansas City each year. The parade has grown to be more than two miles long and lasts over two hours. Now one of the nation’s largest St. Patrick’s Day parades, the parade also ranks as the largest single day event in Kansas City.

The parade begins at the corner of Pershing and Main streets downtown then goes along Grand Boulevard to 14th street. Grand is wide and perfect for a parade. Since 2005, parade barricades line the route to contain crowds and to provide protection to the thousands of parade goers.

The annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade now begins with a single traditional piper and includes color guards, drill teams, bands, floats of every type and description, school groups, and many local dignitaries.

Parade goers are urged to come early and to allow ample time for parking because parking is at a premium along and near the parade route. Be sure to wear show Irish pride by wearing green and enjoy a long-standing Kansas City tradition at the annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade!

For details on this year’s theme and parade time, visit http://www.kcirishparade.com