St Patrick's parade committee step down: Mullingar to have no parade this year
Olga Aughey
A lack of manpower – as opposed to a lack of funding – is the reason there will be no St Patrick’s Day parade in Mullingar this year, it emerged at a Town Team meeting last night, Wednesday.
There will instead be a “cultural event” filled with music, poetry and dance, similar to what was held in the Market Square on Christmas Eve.
Parade committee chairperson, Ruth Illingworth, said every attempt had been made to keep the parade going, including an attempt to have Mullingar Chamber of Commerce take over, but according to Ruth, they also said they would not have the manpower nor the resources to take on the parade.
“We’re a very small committee and after the successful parade we had in 2017, even though we had very little money, we cleared all the debts and we also got great financial support from businesses in the town, as well as Westmeath County Council,” said Ms Illingworth.
“We just don’t have the people. It’s not possible to run a parade with such a number of people,” she said at the meeting held in the Annebrook House Hotel.
“The parade committee has now stepped down,” she announced.
However, the Mullingar Half Marathon will still take place on the morning of St Patrick’s Day, attracting huge numbers into the town, and there are now moves to organise a cultural event in the Market Square, she said.
Attempts will also be made to retain the kids play zone on Castle Street, as well as food and craft stalls.
“Mullingar Town Team want to get the message out there now that anyone wishing to put together a cultural event to contact us,” said Angela Maher, chair of Mullingar Town Team.
“We’re going to try and put a group together to organise this event and anyone wanting to get involved we’d ask them to please put their name forward.
“We need to make something happen in the town on St Patrick’s Day, it would be a shame not to mark our national day, and we are a music capital here, so let’s do something along those lines,” concluded Ms Maher.