2007 Philadelphia St. Patrick's Celebration

For www.irishphiladelphia.com, St. Patrick's Day started WEEKS before the actual day, with the Trenton Miss St. Patrick's Day Contest.

Things quickly spiraled out of control from there.

We took in the Mount Holly, Levittown and Philadelphia parades. We sopped up the gravy with brown bread at the Hibernian Hunger Project Irish stew cook-off at Finnigan's Wake, nibbled Irish potatoes lovingly hand-rolled by the ladies of LAOH Division 1 in Center City, and we sipped the Irish coffee at an AOH contest in Swedesburg.

We went to Mass. We stepped lively at a ceili. We celebrated at a party or two, danced at a Blackthorn concert, sloshed through the snow to get to Judge Jimmy Lynn's annual breakfast at the Plough and the Stars, survived a bit of pub crawling at Dolan's in Delaware County, and wrapped it all up by putting on the black tie and kilt at the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick 236th annual banquet.

And, oh yes, we walked our legs off at the Ireland-themed Philadelphia Flower Show.

Now, we're most definitely pooped. But before we ran completely out of gas, we slapped together this photo retrospective.

Photos by Denise Foley and Jeff Meade of www.irishphiladelphia.com, with great Blackthorn photos provided by our talented friend Gwyneth MacArthur.

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• philadelphia
• delaware
• valley
• irish
• st.
• patrick
• parade
• 2007
• blackthorn
• plough
• and
• stars
• jimmy
• lynn
• hibernian
• aoh
• finnigan

[Bronxloyalist]

Love the Irish,Catholic racism esposed by the KKEeystone division.And you got the balls to talk about the Orange Order.The order has members of all races.We aren't fascists like the bigots of the AOH.

[irishphiladelphia]

I apologize for not jumping on this. Don't know how I missed it. Not long ago, the Irish were the targets of racism. They burned down our churches and they said we were monkeys. So I just can't understand how any Irish American could fail to see how much we have in common with the experience of African Americans. As for the video, we shoot what we see. People from ALL walks of life - not just white people named O'Brien and Ryan and Sheehan and Meehan - attend Irish events. That's a good thing.

[KatyKane]

The true spirit of the Philadelphia Irish rang true in this video. Watching it made all the more homesick. Praying to be able to come home for a visit and see this year's parade live & in person.

God Bless.

[keystonedivision]

This might seem a bit out of line to some people but why on earth are their so many Black people in this video? Actually why are there any, they are not Irish. They have plenty of their own celebrations, why do they have to attend ours?

[rinceseit]

Great job as usual, Jeff!