PATCHOGUE, NY — A sea of green took over Patchogue Village’s Main Street as an estimated 12,000 people 10-deep lined the sidewalks on Sunday for the first-ever St. Patrick’s Day parade to fall on St. Patrick’s Day.
“It was just a tremendous amount of people,” Mayor Paul Pontieri said.
The annual tradition kicked off around noon, drawing area fire departments, community groups, and businesses with an array of marching units and floats, as well as pipe and drum bands from all over. The sound of traditional Irish music on bagpipes wafted through the air, as well as modern tunes like “I’m Shipping Up To Boston” by Dropkick Murphys and House of Pain’s “Jump Around.”
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The line of march came to an end at around 1:30 p.m., but it took the village’s Department of Public Works an hour afterward to clean up Main Street and Public Safety to move the crowd onto the sidewalk so that traffic could pass, according to Pontieri.
“It was the biggest parade ever on Main Street, along with the Christmas parade and all other parades,” he said.
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Past years have seen good size crowds in the thousands, but Pontieri images it was the combination of the parade falling on St. Patrick’s Day itself, as well as the warm weather that drew the large crowd.
“It was about as big as you could get in such a small place like Patchogue,” he said.
This story will be updated. Check back later.
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