Mullingar St Patrick’s Day Festival launches

Mullingar St Patrick’s Day Festival 2026 held a successful quiz launch night on Thursday night in The Annebrook House Hotel. Hosted by Quizmaster Willie Geraghty, a good crowd turned out on a wet and windy night to support the launch of this year’s parade and festival.

The theme of the parade this year is ‘Ireland’s Myths and Legends’ as the committee pay tribute to local historian and documentary maker Manchán Magan, who sadly passed away last year.

The committee encourage all floats to incorporate the theme as far as possible, and remind those planning to enter that the closing date for floats is March 10.

At the launch, committee member Seamus Dunne emphasised the need for new committee, and for volunteers on St Patrick’s Day, to ensure safety and smooth running of the parade.

He said: “At the moment, we are a-four person committee organising the parade and other events, which makes things quite difficult – with a few more people on the committee, it will make things much smoother and ensure we can keep growing the parade and festival every year.

“We meet for a hour once a week, the workload is shared around, and it’s a great experience to see all that work come to fruition St Patrick’s weekend, and see the thousands of people come out to support it.”

A large team of volunteers on St Patrick’s Day is also needed to ensure safety for everybody attending, to monitor road closures, making sure everybody has a great experience.

Outside of the flagship parade, there are plans for a funfair in town, trad music in pubs, a Westlife themed brunch, historic walking tours, and more.

Putting on the parade and festival comes with large costs – which continue to grow year on year. Seamus explained: “We get great support and sponsorship from businesses in Mullingar every year, and without their generous support, it would be very difficult to meet the costs of the parade.

“We hope that this year will be no different and that we can put on a parade and festival that the town will be proud of, that bring thousands of people into the town to boost the local economy, and make Mullingar the place to be to celebrate St Patrick’s Day”

On the night, the Committee paid tribute to Westmeath County Council, An Garda Síochána, the Order of Malta, the Civil Defence, Mullingar Tidy Towns, and others who play an invaluable part in running the parade on St Patrick’s Day.

To join the committee or sign up to be a volunteer, get in touch at mullingarstpatricksday@gmail.com or check out the website for information www.stpatricksdaymullingar.ie.

Information on sponsorship packages and float entries is on the website, or email the committee.