Nearly 1 million people — including tourists, students and longtime Boston residents, all clad in green — flooded South Boston sidewalks for the city’s annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade held Sunday, March 15.
Onlookers sang, cheered and waved Irish flags as parade groups marched by. Some Southie residents looked on from their apartment windows or balconies above the street.
“This is my first [St. Patrick’s Day parade], but I’m a Boston local,” said Leighton Matthews, a first-year behavioral neuroscience student at Northeastern who attended with a group of friends. “It was so fun.”
This year, the parade featured a different route from previous years, beginning in Andrew Square and ending on A Street. The change was intended to honor the historic route used by Henry Knox during the British evacuation, according to a press release issued by the Allied War Veterans Council.
In a traffic advisory issued March 12, the City of Boston recommended people avoid driving and instead walk or use public transportation.
“When you got [to South Boston], there were so many people you had to walk through just to get to where the parade is,” Matthews said. “It’s so annoying.”
Boston’s St. Patrick’s Day parade was first held in 1901 when local Irish American veterans organized a march to honor both St. Patrick’s Day and Evacuation Day, which commemorates the day British troops left the city in 1776 during the American Revolutionary War. Like many St. Patrick’s Day celebrations, the holiday has long been associated with heavy drinking, a custom that grew in part because church alcohol restrictions during Lent were lifted every year on March 17. As the one day the Church permitted drinking, the tradition stuck.
The Boston Police Department, or BPD, reminded attendees ahead of the parade that public drinking would not be tolerated this year.
“At the parade, public drinking, providing alcohol to minors and open containers of alcohol in public is illegal and will lead to the seizure of alcohol and arrest,” the BPD said in a community alert.
Boston Emergency Medical Services responded to more than 70 patients, according to a statement on X.
At Andrew Station, police watched over a colorful pile of confiscated “BORGs,” or jugs filled with mixed alcoholic drinks, as they monitored crowds heading to the parade route. In recent years, BORGs, short for “blackout rage gallons” and oftentimes dyed green and decorated with creative labels, have become an unofficial St. Patrick’s Day tradition among many college students in Boston.
“There was not so much [police presence] in the streets, but at the stations, there were a lot of police there because there was a lot of drunk people,” said Eileen von Ah, who traveled from Switzerland for the parade. “But overall, everything was really safe.”
Irish dance groups and Revolutionary War reenactors were part of the parade. Animals, including horses, cows and Irish wolfhounds, could also be spotted passing along the route. From behind metal barricades, spectators leaned over to grab candy and shamrock beads thrown from floats and other parade groups.
Several politicians, including Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey, Lieutenant Governor Kim Driscoll, City Councilor Ed Flynn, U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch and state Sen. Nick Collins, among others, were present. Jaylen Brown, a basketball player for the Boston Celtics, also greeted fans in a surprise appearance.
“I traveled to Boston to see [the parade],” said Maria Laura Gnecco, a student who visited from Colombia for the weekend. “The parade is spectacular.”
