When most people think of big St. Patrick’s Day celebrations, giant metropolises like New York where proud Irish people have marched since 1762 and Chicago where they actually dye the river green come to mind. But some of the most fun St. Patrick’s Day festivities occur in unexpected towns across the South where residents of Irish descent join together with people whose connections to the Emerald Isle pretty much ended when Bennigan’s closed their last fern bar in the region.
The main connecting feature between which Southern cities throw St. Patrick’s Day bashes is how much they love a good party, so it’s no surprise New Orleans and Savannah, Georgia, top the list of best spots to celebrate a little Erin go Bragh. But other towns also celebrate the man who legendarily drove the snakes out of Ireland. Hot Springs, Arkansas is quite proud of its “First-Ever, 17th Annual Smallest St. Patrick’s Day Parade.” The parade route runs 98 feet along Bridge Street in downtown Hot Springs, so the marchers hardly break a sweat. But that doesn’t mean they don’t work up a powerful thirst that they’ll want to slake in one of the many nearby watering holes that add green food coloring to their beers for the day.
If you’re looking for a St. Patrick’s Day party that’s a little larger in scale, we definitely recommend NOLA and “The Hostess City of the South,” Savannah. We have another unexpected option for you … Consider a trip to Jackson, Mississippi, for a community-based celebration steeped in local culture. As a bonus, Southern towns don’t obsess over staging their events on the actual day of March 17 in many cases, so you can stretch out the party over a couple of weeks.
How Southern Cities Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day
New Orleans, Louisiana
The Big Easy prides itself on its residents’ diverse backgrounds, beyond even the Creole culture the city’s cuisine is known for. Many New Orleanians have Italian and Sicilian roots to their family tree, and multigenerational residents can still sound a little bit like someone from Brooklyn, a dialect known locally as “Yat,” as in the question “Where y’at?” The city even holds an Italian-American St. Joseph’s Parade in the midst of the rest of their St. Patrick’s festivities to acknowledge this group of descendants.
But it’s the Irish who take over the city in mid-March, just as the rest of town has begun to emerge from their post-Mardi Gras fog. During the 1830s, Irish laborers came to the city to construct the important New Basin Canal that opened up a shipping route along a waterway between Lake Pontchartrain and Uptown. Many of these laborers settled in an area located south of Magazine Street, a neighborhood that became known as Irish Channel.
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Irish Channel is the site of the first of three major St. Patrick’s Day parades in New Orleans. It is traditionally held the Saturday before March 17, so this year festivities kick off on March 14 with a block party surrounding the famous neighborhood tavern, Parasol’s. The party starts early with first call at 10 a.m. and runs until 8 p.m. The official Irish Channel Parade starts rolling at 1 p.m. with marching bands, beauty queens, gentlemen handing out roses (and the occasional peck on the cheek) to young ladies and all sorts of floats festooned with flowers and green decorations and occupied by revelers tossing trinkets to the crowds that line the parade route along Magazine Street, Jackson Avenue and St. Charles.
If you’ve visited New Orleans during Mardi Gras season, you might recognize some of the floats, many of which are repurposed and redecorated for St. Patrick’s Day. Mardi Gras veterans will also be prepared to plead for strings of plastic beads, cups, stuffed animals and other “throws” meted out by the float riders, but St. Patrick’s Day in New Orleans features another unique sort of parade projectile: vegetables.
Yes, you read that correctly. Stretching back to the days of the Great Potato Famine when the dirt-poor Irish subsisted on cabbage soup, float riders augment their throws with the makings of a fine vegetable stew. You might find yourself being pelted with potatoes, onions, carrots and the most coveted and dangerous prizes of all: whole heads of cabbages. Some parade viewers set up ladders along the route to get a better perspective on the proceedings and to reach over the crowd to snag supplies for a kettle of slightly bruised vegetable soup. Riders are encouraged to toss those cabbages underhand gently, but it’s still best to keep your head on a swivel lest your head meets one of those heads.
After the Saturday parade has completed, revelers head to the French Quarter for some cross-cultural fun at the aforementioned St. Joseph’s Parade. While it’s almost impossible to go to bed early in the Big Easy, you might want to at least try, because you have a big day coming up tomorrow.
Sunday is a bit of a road trip up to Metairie Road, about a half-hour ride from the Quarter. The Metairie Parade is usually the Sunday before St. Patrick’s Day, March 15, this year. The party starts at Rummel High School after Sunday’s morning mass ends, so figure noon-ish. This festive neighborhood event features many of the same floats from the Irish Channel Parade, but often with new sets of riders and slight tweaks to the float themes. You can expect more of the same sorts of throws plus the popular addition of Moon Pies, the Southern treat aerodynamically perfect for flinging long distances.
The Metairie Parade is even more family-oriented than Irish Channel, so bring the kids to listen to the bands and watch the marching clubs of well-dressed ladies and gents showing off their Irish pride.
For the actual big day of March 17, crowds return to Irish Channel for a huge block party beginning at Annunciation Square at 1 p.m. This festival features Irish music, food, drinks and dancers, and proceeds benefit St. Michael’s Special School. After that, the crowd slowly makes its way to the starting point of the only nighttime parade of the season: the Downtown Irish Club Parade that starts at 6 p.m.
The Downtown route begins in the Bywater district of New Orleans, rolling along the river on Decatur Street toward Canal before looping back to take over the world-famous Bourbon Street. The crowds can get pretty intense on Bourbon even when there aren’t marching bands and floats being pulled by tractors, but hey, what’s your hurry? A little New Orleans never hurt anybody, right? And don’t forget to wear something green, or you might get pinched like a crawfish tail!
Where to stay
While New Orleans boasts all sorts of fine properties to rest your weary head between the revelry, we’re fans of the Loews because of its ultra-convenient location close to (but not in the middle of) the French Quarter, steps from Harrah’s Casino and other attractions like the Audubon Aquarium and WWII Museum. The Loews also offers easy access to the New Orleans streetcar system that can take you even farther afield to explore the city’s fine dining, bars and museums.
For a smaller property, we’re partial to the International House Hotel, a boutique hotel also conveniently located in the Central Business District. International House offers 117 spacious rooms, suites and penthouses and features gorgeous historic architecture throughout the building. There is even a work by the famous guerilla graffiti artist Banksy displayed in the lobby. The hotel’s cocktail lounge, Loa, is a sensual setting to enjoy inventive drinks crafted by talented mixologists
Savannah, Georgia
Savannah has celebrated St. Patrick’s Day since the early 19th century when a group of Irish Protestants formed the Hibernian Society of Savannah as an aid group for needy Irish immigrants to the region. In the years since, the Savannah parade has grown into the second-largest celebration of St. Patrick’s Day in the country and the third-largest in the world, attracting thousands of viewers plus a few U.S. presidents over the years to witness the festivities.
The season kicks off with the annual “Greening of the Fountain,” where the famous Forsyth Park fountain is dyed to commemorate the Emerald Isle on Friday, March 3 at noon. Organizers claim it’s the work of impish leprechauns, but it does get everyone in the spirit of the season.
The weekend before the big day is marked by the Savannah Waterfront’s Festival of St. Patrick, a rollicking street party along the riverside with food and drink plus live entertainment on multiple stages. This year, the festival starts on Friday, March 13 at 6 p.m. and lasts until Sunday, March 15.
That Friday and Saturday also mark City Market’s St. Patrick’s Day Celebration, an outdoor festival covering two city blocks, and which actually spills over into surrounding historic squares, bars and restaurants. The festivities run from 10 a.m. until midnight and feature plenty of live music.
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On Saturday, March 14, nearby Tybee Island will host the 18th Annual Tybee Island Irish Heritage Parade, where the popular vacation spot will be decked out with green for a family-friendly parade featuring all sorts of floats, bands and marching groups.
On St. Patrick’s Day proper, Savannah basically shuts down as the huge parade takes over the town with floats and marching units hitting the streets beginning at 10:15 a.m. This will be the 196th edition of the Savannah St. Patrick’s Day Parade, and more than 350 marching units will take part as they stream past close to 20,000 viewers stretched along the parade route that begins at Forsyth Park and runs toward the riverfront along Bay Street before ending at Madison Square near the starting point.
Where to stay
Sometimes the smartest move is to stay close enough to the action for easy access, but not in the direct line of fire. That’s why we love the Westin Savannah Harbor just across the river from the craziness of Bay Street. Not only is it a lovely property with a spa and access to a world-class golf course, but guests can enjoy a free shuttle boat that carries them across the river as part of a loop that makes stops at two points along the Savannah Riverwalk.
Jackson, Mississippi
Unlike the St. Patrick’s Day festivities in New Orleans and Savannah, the celebrations in Jackson, Mississippi are less municipal-based and are instead organized by a beloved local restaurant and bar, Hal & Mal’s. During the early 1980s owner Malcolm White organized his own small parade up Capitol Street. Mal and his friends dressed up in costumes and generally threw a little walking party in a hybrid celebration of Mardi Gras and St. Patrick’s Day. The parade is named in honor of Mal’s late brother and former restaurant co-owner, Hal White.
Because private organizers execute it, they’re free to do pretty much whatever they want, including staging St. Paddy’s Parade and Festival on whatever date they choose instead of being anchored to March 17. This year, the Jackson festivities will take place on Saturday, March 28, beginning with a kids 5K run at 8 a.m., followed by a children’s festival and pet parade. The main parade starts at 1 p.m. and features marching groups such as the dapper O’Tux Society, The Rude Men and the Krewe of Kazoo plus marching bands, second-line brass bands and floats circling downtown and tossing out throws to the assembled crowds. This year, the legendary and delightfully bawdy Sweet Potato Queens will join in the fun led by their founder Her Royal Highness, Jill Conner Browne.
If you notice a group of people walking around with buckets on their heads, you have discovered some of the judges who pick the winners of various creativity, decorating and skit contests. They go by the obvious name of “Bucketheads,” preserving their anonymity and objectivity with their pail disguises.
After the walking tour has ended, attendees and marchers convene in bars and clubs all over town for music-filled parties that stretch late into the night. Of course, the biggest and best afterparty is at Hal & Mal’s, and the music there kicks off at 3 p.m. Some people forego the parade altogether to arrive at the bar at 1 p.m., if for no other reason than to enjoy access to bathroom facilities.
The festival benefits Batson Children’s Hospital – Mississippi’s only pediatric hospital, and it has been a major source of funding for the center’s efforts to provide children’s health care at the University of Mississippi Medical Center since the early 1980s. Mal remains committed to supporting the hospital, even though the cost of parade insurance and logistics has complicated what started as just a stroll with some wacky friend. He vows, “We are proud to feature Batson’s Hospital for Children as our partner and to share the good news of the remarkable work they do in Mississippi. What could be more rewarding than celebrating Jackson and supporting Batson’s while wearing a funny costume and marching down Capitol street in broad daylight?”
Where to stay
The Old Capitol Inn is a lovely property right on the parade route, just a few blocks away from Hal & Mal’s. The mid-century building housing the hotel was originally constructed as the YWCA before it was renovated into a bed & breakfast in 1996. In addition to comfortable guest rooms, the Old Capitol Inn features a welcoming New Orleans-style garden courtyard and a cozy little restaurant perfect for grabbing breakfast before heading out for a day of exploring Jackson’s history or watching the parade roll by.
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