Don't rain on our parade! Organisers pull the plug on Cavan Town event

- Rory Quinn -

Time is running out for this year's St Patrick's Day Parade in the county town as organisers have pulled the plug on the popular annual event.

The committee in charge of organising the parade has disbanded, citing a lack of volunteers to do the necessary work.

The Celt understands there were only four active members prior to its disbandment and efforts to get more volunteers on board came to no avail.

The parade is a community effort so Cavan County Council doesn’t typically get involved beyond helping the committee with funding.

Previous committee member Michael Mooney of the Slieve Rossa Bar told the Celt that the council had been made aware that the committee was winding up and the parade was unlikely to happen.

Michael said the parade typically costs anywhere from €8,000 to 10,000 to stage and without help to collect the money, it could not be held.

Typical costs include bands, insurance, making floats etc.

Funding had been challenging, especially in recent years, with costs of insurance and fears that, post Covid, the parade wouldn’t attract the same numbers. Although this proved not to be the case.

It appears the demand for a parade is there but volunteers are in short supply to make it happen.

This is not the first, or even the second year the parade has been in doubt. So why are we once again in the same situation?

"With people stepping away and some members passing there just wasn’t the numbers [volunteers]," says Michael.

When he joined the committee initially, Michael recalled nearly 12 people present at his first meeting. That, he said, made things much easier for planning and assigning roles.

Traditionally, there was no fee to enter the Cavan Town parade and organisers feel that is something that may need to be looked at.

Fianna Fáil County Councillor Patricia Walsh was a committee member for many years before stepping down to make way for a new committee.

She believes a longer lead-in time is needed to organise the parade.

"A parade like this would really need to start being planned from November to March and even then those weeks would be chaotic," she said.

It is now just under three weeks until St Patrick’s Day and fears are growing as to whether or not it can be pulled together in such a short timeframe.

The Cavan Town parade traditionally set off from Tesco carpark at 12:30pm every year. There were five marching bands in last year's parade, for which comedian Kevin McGahern was the Grand Marshal.

Cllr Walsh is optimistic that, if a band can be booked, the rest might fall into place.