This year sees the 11th anniversary of the Nottingham St Patrick's day Parade/Festival. Back in the centenary year 2000, who would have foreseen that from a gem of an idea and hard work from Elaine Marren and the supportive stalwart teams over the years that we would have reached this 11th anniversary milestone.

This year's Parade will be led by representatives of Waterford, joined by St Patrick (Michael Carty), school children from at least 4 local primary schools as well as other groups representing the four Provinces, the Golden Shamrock Club, St Barnabas GAA, The Nottingham Irish Golf Society, the Inspire Club, Comhaltas, and several Irish Dance academies. It promises to be a colourful event, when all these groups and more are joined at the head of the Parade by John St John playing the pipes, the Trinity School Band, the Tartenaires, and the Oriole New Orleans Jazz band to name a few.

The parade will be greeted in the Old Market Square at 12.45pm by the Lord Mayor of Nottingham and Tony McCullagh, First Secretary of the Irish Embassy. An open air concert follows.

Timetable

• Assemble at 11.00am at Forest Recreation Ground.
• Parade starts at 12.00 noon and procedes along the route: Mansfield Road → Lower Milton Street → Parliament Street → Queens Street and into the Square (map).
• Parade arrives in Market Square at 12.45pm for afternoon open air concert.

March 3rd  – Deirdre O'Byrne is talking on Irish folktales to the Theosophical Society (on Maid Marion Way).

March 9th  –  Gill Spraggs will talk about Irish settlement in London, at the Irish Centre.

March 10th  – An infectious modern take on Irish music from Gráda at Djanology Theatre at the Lakeside Pavillion. 

March 12th  – Nottingham Irish Golf Society – St Patrick's Day Golf Tournament at Ruddington Grange Golf Club. Guests welcome – call 0796 796 87 87 for further details.

March 13th  – Deirdre O'Byrne is in Mansfield library doing storytelling for children.

March 13th  – Ireland v. Wales. Six Nations Rugby at Croke Park.

March 15th  – Deirdre O'Byrne is talking about Irish literature to the Salvation Army.

March 16th  – Pat Murphy will give a talk on 'Feargus O’Connor' (Chartist Leader and MP for Nottingham 1796-1855). Nottingham Irish Centre, 2-4 Wilford Street, at 7.30 (£3 - £1.50 concessions).

March 17th  – The Mass of Celebration of St Patrick will be at 10am at the Church of Our Lady and St Patrick in the Meadows Nottingham. Parts of the Sean O'Riada Mass will be sung by Seán O'Sé joined by the congregation. The preacher will be Fr. Michael Gallagher, and Fr. Michael Brown will be the main celebrant. Mass will be followed by tea and light refreshments kindly provided by the parishioners.

March 17th  – Parade & Entertainment in the Market Square featuring John Mc Nicholl and his band.

March 17th  – Celebrations at Greyfriars Club.

March 17th  – Ronan Keating is the Headline act in town at the Royal Centre on St Patrick's Day.

March 17th  – Irish film Arise, You Gallant Sweeneys! at the Broadway cinema.

May 11-16th  – Riverdance farewell tour at the Royal Centre.

Copies of this year's flyer and A3 poster are available to download in PDF format.

Download the flyer (1.7 Mb)

Download the poster (1.3 Mb)

Arise, You Gallant Sweeneys! is an experimental documentary focusing on a dwindling generation of Irish men who emigrated to this country to find work in the 1950s and 60s; a proportion of whom found themselves homeless and destitute in cities at the ends of motorways they had spent their working lives building, like Liverpool, Leeds, and Nottingham.

The film is experimental in that it has been made in partnership with a group of these original migrants who live in sheltered accommodation in Nottingham. The group calls itself The Long Distance Gang in homage to a shared working history. The project is unique as a documentary in that the group retains collective ownership over all the material produced.

The camera follows as they retrace their steps back to villages and families left a generation before, unravelling narratives along the way, as rambling nostalgic accounts of grafting, 'tramping' and 'blaggarding' are set against roadside pubs and late summer in western Ireland.

Members of the group have wide ranging experiences; amongst them musicians, artists, survivors of orphanages and care systems, street homelessness, alcohol dependency, sectarian violence, domestic violence, and enduring mental health problems, film-makers and activists.

Arise, You Gallant Sweeneys! is an OutsideFilm production. For details please call Ian Nesbitt on 07791044678 or email This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .

This project has been funded by Arts Council England Grants For the Arts programme.

The film will be shown at the Broadway cinema on March 17th at 6pm. There will be a post screening discussion led by Ian. There will also be Irish food on the menu.