Cleveland St. Patrick’s Day: A Tradition with Deep Roots and a Long Memory

Cleveland is not short on public traditions, but St. Patrick’s Day stands apart because it functions as both celebration and civic mirror. It is one of the few days each year when the city’s Irish identity becomes visible at scale: families, organizations, musicians, dancers, and longtime volunteers taking to the streets not to “put on” a culture, but to celebrate and carry one forward.

That continuity is not symbolic. Cleveland’s earliest-known St. Patrick’s Day Parade dates to 1842, organized by Rev. Peter McLaughlin, the city’s third resident Catholic priest. Early accounts describe a day that began with Mass at St. Mary’s on the Flats (the only Catholic church within Cleveland’s city limits at the time), continued with a procession connected to temperance efforts, and ended with a banquet. Those details matter, because they reveal what has remained consistent: a public celebration rooted in community institutions and shared purpose, not simply festivity.

Over time, the parade grew into a downtown institution. Today, Cleveland St. Patrick’s Day Parade is commonly described as one of the largest in the country, often cited as drawing more than 10,000 participants and nearly 500,000 visitors. The scale is impressive, but it is the composition that tells the story: Irish organizations, pipe bands, dancers, civic groups, first responders, school communities, and multi-generational families treat the day as an annual commitment.

The structure behind the parade reinforces this. The event is organized by the United Irish Societies of Greater Cleveland, which was formed in 1958 to coordinate parade planning and has managed the parade since. The parade’s long-running success is not accidental; it is maintained through volunteer systems, organizational memory, and the often-invisible work of people who understand that a tradition lasts only if people keep showing up to do the backstage work.

A Tradition Shaped by Moments, Not Just Years

Because the parade is annual, it’s easy to treat it as a steady line across history. But the Cleveland St. Patrick’s Day Parade has also been shaped by distinct moments – years that turned into reference points.

One of the clearest examples is weather. Cleveland’s parade history includes delays and postponements in severe conditions. A well-documented instance is 1973, remembered for heavy snow downtown that forced postponement, an example of the parade’s resilience and the city’s willingness to adjust rather than abandon the tradition.

Another notable delay occurred in 1959, when a snowstorm led organizers to postpone the parade until the following Sunday. These aren’t footnotes; they are part of the parade’s character, reminding Clevelanders that tradition is not fragile, but neither is it immune to reality.

Then, in 2020, reality arrived in a different form. The parade was canceled due to COVID-19 concerns, reported at the time as the first outright cancellation in the parade’s long history, distinct from short weather postponements.

The parade was also absent in 2021. When it returned in 2022, the coverage captured something beyond the logistics of route and start time: people had missed the gathering itself. The return made clear what the parade does for the city, it creates a shared public space where community becomes visible.

Cleveland Weather on March 17: The Numbers Tell the Story

Clevelanders often describe St. Patrick’s Day weather as unpredictable, but the data gives that unpredictability a sharper edge. According to National Weather Service climatology for Cleveland, the record high temperature on March 17 was 77°F (2012). The record low was -2°F (1900). Even more telling is the coldest “high” temperature: 12°F (1941), a reminder that there have been years when the warmest part of the day still qualified as a test of endurance.

Precipitation and snowfall are part of the March 17 record as well. The NWS climatology lists 0.66 inches of precipitation (1945) as the record for the date, and 5.6 inches of snowfall (1973) as the record snowfall since 1948. Together, these extremes help explain why Cleveland St. Patrick’s Day looks the way it does: a parade where sunglasses and winter hats can appear in the same crowd, and where attendance is less about comfort than commitment.

Weather is not merely a backdrop in Cleveland; it is often the thing that turns a parade day into a story that gets repeated for years. In that sense, the climate record is not just data – it is part of the city’s memory.

A March Project Built from Your Memories

This February column is also a bridge to a larger community project planned for the March issue of iIrish. I am collecting Cleveland St. Patrick’s Day memories – your stories and photographs – so that next month’s column can reflect not only what happens downtown, but what it means across time.

The best memories are not always dramatic; they are often precise: a grandparent’s hand held tightly in the crowd; a first parade watched from a parent’s shoulders; a pipe band that still echoes years later; the year the weather turned the day into an endurance test; the year it felt like spring; the year a simple meeting downtown became a turning point in a friendship.

If Cleveland’s parade is a public tradition, its meaning is constructed privately, through families, neighborhoods, organizations, and personal histories that are sometimes joyful and sometimes bittersweet. That is the kind of record worth preserving.

Cleveland’s St. Patrick’s Day has lasted because it is repeatedly renewed, by people who show up, by organizations that sustain it, and by a city that continues to recognize itself in the sound of pipes on Superior Avenue. The parade is history, but it is also a living document. March will add another page.

References:

Axios Cleveland. (2025, March 17). Bike project could jeopardize St. Patrick’s Day parade route. https://www.axios.com/local/cleveland/2025/03/17/bike-project-st-patricks-day-parade-route-superior

Cleveland Magazine. (n.d.). 1959: Snowstorm delays but doesn’t stop Cleveland’s St. Patrick’s Day parade. https://clevelandmagazine.com/articles/1959-snowstorm-delays-but-doesnt-stop-clevelands-st-patricks-day-parade/

City of Cleveland. (2025, March 14). Cleveland gears up for exciting St. Patrick’s Day Parade on March 17, 2025: Essential traffic and safety information for attendees. https://www.clevelandohio.gov/news/cleveland-gears-exciting-st-patricks-day-parade-march-17-2025-essential-traffic-and-safety

Destination Cleveland. (n.d.). Cleveland St. Patrick’s Day Parade (event listing). https://www.thisiscleveland.com/events/event-calendar/cleveland-st-patrick-s-day-parade

Ideastream Public Media. (2020, March 11). Cleveland’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade canceled due to coronavirus. https://www.ideastream.org/health-science/2020-03-11/clevelands-st-patricks-day-parade-canceled-due-to-coronavirus

Ideastream Public Media. (2022, March 17). Cleveland’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade returns with plenty of first timers along the route. https://www.ideastream.org/community/2022-03-17/clevelands-st-patricks-day-parade-returns-with-plenty-of-first-timers-along-the-route

• National Weather Service Cleveland. (n.d.). St. Patrick’s Day climatology for NWS Cleveland climate sites. https://www.weather.gov/cle/holidays_StPatricksDay

St. Patrick’s Day Cleveland (United Irish Societies of Greater Cleveland). (n.d.). Parade route. https://www.stpatricksdaycleveland.com/p/parade-route_16.html