OPINION: Perhaps it’s time to look at one big parade for County Cavan

No less than 13 parades are staged in County Cavan on St Patrick’s Day - all proudly celebrating the diversity of clubs, organisations and local businesses from their respective areas. Is it something to be commended? Certainly! Is it largely down to tradition? In most cases... yes. Is it all really necessary? I don’t mean to rain on anybody’s parade (literally) but no it’s not. It suits the publicans in local towns certainly and, of course, it’s convenient for families to have a parade locally. But how many people do you hear grumbling or joking about the ‘tractor’ parades? And if you don’t get semi-decent weather (and let’s face it, this is Ireland and more often than not it will rain), it can quickly turn to disaster. Surely three is more than enough (one in the east, one in the west and one in Cavan Town) - or dare I say it, just the one? When you consider what Cavan Town and county was able to achieve with hosting three successive All-Ireland Fleadh Cheoils in the county town, would we not be better putting all our eggs in one basket, so to speak, and arranging one massive festival in the county town? St Patrick’s Day is afterall our national feast day and is about celebrating all that is great about Irish culture and tradition. How close to the fleadh can you get in terms of a theme? If the respective committees around the county came together, if some heavy-weight sponsors were brought on board and a decent prize fund established for floats, the parade would attract a very high calibre of marchers and floats. If there was a very high-quality parade on offer (with perhaps some shelter along the main street, similar to what was done for the fleadh), families surely would be more than happy to make a day out of it and travel. A programme of events for the day or weekend could be built around the parade. Think of the feast of entertainment that there was around the fringe fleadh - drama, art, historical walks, Irish language workshops, family fun days etc. Of course, you’re not talking about an event on the scale of the fleadh but something that could cater for the county-wide population and some areas nearby. How many families were left with a dilemma as to what to do last St Patrick’s Day to entertain the children? More often than not it was Mass, a parade and maybe a bite to eat afterwards and a perhaps a couple of drinks. But outside of that, what really was there to do? How was this a celebration of our Irish heritage and patron saint’s day? For example, a poll posted on The Anglo-Celt website last week asked Do the Irish drink too much on St Patrick’s Day? Almost 48% or nearly half of respondents said ‘yes, it’s an excuse for drink’. Almost 31.5% voted ‘no a small minority take it too far’, while almost 21% said ‘we don’t drink enough’. Let’s give the revellers something to do other than drink. Furthermore, the timing of the parade in Cavan Town is at 12.30pm. Traditionally it followed Mass in the Cathedral and was also to accommodate a number of marching bands who might be travelling onwards to other parades. But is it too early? If Cavan were to pool its resources into one massive St Patrick’s Day Festival and Parade in Cavan Town, the time would have to be looked at. Surely 2pm or 3pm would be better for a parade in that event. Ditching parades that are traditions in their respective towns going back decades would certainly not be an easy (or a popular) decision at first. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that it wouldn’t be the right decision. County Cavan has shown that we are strongest when we work together.