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Happy St. Paticks Day everyone!

St patrick's Festival Cill Airne have announced the full schedule of events to celebrate our national holiday.

Festival Chairperson Paul Sherry said: “We are delighted to announce our full event guide, the result of many months of hard work by the committee together with Killarney Chamber of Tourism & Commerce and Kerry County Council.”

St Patricks Day Events (March 17)

Street Entertainment

The day kicks off at 12 noon in Beech Road Car Park where the Children’s fun zone will be located. Face painting, bouncy castles and DJ Donal kids disco will entertain the crowds before and after the parade. The moms and dads will be catered for with a 60-inch screening of the Ireland v England rugby game at 2.45pm.

On Main Street there will be pre-parade entertainment from 12.45pm to 1.30pm with the Killarney School of Music performance group led by Pádraig Buckley. Post-parade on Main Street sees ‘Paddies Party’ swing into action from 3.30pm with DJ Niall ‘Botty’ O’Callaghan and The Rising trad group from Fossa. Celtic Steps will entertain the masses at 4.30pm. “We have a wonderful array of talented local performers giving their time on the day,” commented David Rae, musical director for the festival. “We expect great crowds and this is all free entertainment.”

St Patrick’s Day Parade

This year’s parade has garnered huge interest as is evident by the wealth of talent and diversity in the entries. Commencing at 2pm, this year’s parade will weave its way up Mission Road onto East Avenue, Kenmare Place, Main Street, New Street, Beech Road and into the New Street lower car park exiting onto Mission Road.

The Creative Director for this year’s parade is Fiona Crowley of Fiona Crowley Stage School.

“We have hundreds of participants in this year’s parade,” Fiona sais, “and we can rest assured that the parade will be a success in its primary goal, which is to ensure that it is, as always, about the community, the men, women, boys and girls who walk with pride alongside each other to make our parade happen. Without them there is no parade, so we salute you, our participants, our clubs, our schools, our organisations, who always make this parade a memorable one.”

The committee strongly advise everyone to arrive in town early and note the traffic detours that will be in place. Free parking has been secured at the following locations from 1.00pm to 4.30pm:

St Brendan’s College Secondary School, Penney’s car park, Hillard House and Killarney Community College, New Road. The Festival committee want to thank all the schools and car park providers for their generosity in assisting the running of the parade.

There will also be a wheelchair viewing area at Market Cross and the parade route and after party will have lots of amazing characters wandering about, plenty of characters not seen before in Killarney, and these guys are happy to pose for photos.

Paul Sherry, Chairperson, said: “We are expecting a large crowd in Killarney for the day’s events and we encourage everyone to wear your colours and paint the town green. Of course, please listen to the stewards and be safety conscious but overall enjoy the day’s festivities.”

The briefing for the stewards will take place at 12.30pm at the back of the Laurels.

Child Collection Point

Children participating in the parade can be collected from the bottom left-hand corner of the New Street car park (bottle bank area) at the end of the parade route.

The entertainment continues in Killarney over the weekend, on Sunday, March 18 the Mayor’s Charity Shindig takes place at the INEC and on Monday, March 19 there’s a free concert by Killarney School of Music in St Mary’s Church at 8pm.

And, of course, the now annual ‘Greening of Killarney’ will take place over the festival week with many of our iconic buildings bathed in green light. Check out the festival’s Facebook page for the Best Greened Building vote. In addition, this year there is a Best Dressed Shop Window and the competition has been heating up all week.

Festival chair Paul Sherry thanked all the parties who make the festival happen.

“We would like to thank all the volunteers who make the parade happen, from the Fitzgerald Stadium committee, to the Gardaí, the stewards and first aiders, our sponsors who are generous with their funds and their participation, and Kerry County Council.”