Marching to a different tune on St. Patrick’s Day

By Tom Gillespie

NATIONAL celebrations tomorrow (Wednesday) will be toned down as never before. The fall-out from the corona crisis has put paid to the assembly of people.

By now towns and villages should be bedecked with our national flag and bunting to mark St. Patrick’s Day. Nevertheless, we are proud to be Irish and no doubt we will all mark the day in our own special way.

In recent years, Castlebar Chamber of Commerce have been to the fore in organising the annual St. Patrick’s Day parade, and with a great degree of success, making the parade one of the largest and most successful in Connaught.

But this year we will have to reminisce on years of yore and the efforts put in by numerous parade committees in Castlebar to keep the proud tradition alive.

My earliest memories of the parade go back to 1959 when the event ended on the Mall with a demonstration of Irish dancing by the Redmond Academy of Irish Dancing and a recital by the Castlebar Silver Band.

A stage had been erected at the crossroad of the paths - where the Ernie O’Malley memorial is today. It was a simple structure with a stage and scaffolding on three sides of it, and the fourth, with steps up to it, left open so the public could see the performers.

A microphone, amplifier and speaker made up the public address (PA) system, which was supplied by my father, Dick Gillespie.

On that occasion I was drafted in to operate the system. All I had to do was to switch it on when required - for announcements and when the musicians struck up.

As the various marching groups converged on the Mall, the master of ceremonies, Andy Redmond, husband of Irish dance teacher Dot Redmond, urged them to take up their places near and around the makeshift stage.

When the first display of dancing commenced I switched on the PA and my father told me to take control of it while as he and Andy had to go away for a period.

Little did I realise at the time that they had adjourned to the Imperial Hotel across the road with the excuse of drowning the shamrock.

Up until the 1970s, the law prohibited pubs opening on March 17 as a mark of respect for this religious day. It was feared that leaving the pubs open would be too tempting for some during Lent and would lead to a disrespectful amount of drunkenness on this most solemn day.

However, Dick and Andy, being regulars at the Imperial, were able to get served and they had the advantage of keeping an eye on the stage through the large window from the Davitt Lounge in the hotel.

Little did I know then that the Gillespie-Redmond relationship would become more permanent as 10 years later I was married to one of Andy’s daughters.

March 17, back then, was recognised as the start of the ice-cream season and us youngsters flocked to Duxie Stewart’s - now John Kelly’s fine gentlemen’s hair grooming salon - for the first cone of the year. Those with a few more pennies could order a dish of ice-cream topped with raspberry cordial, which was served in a little alcove off the shop.

Again, if you were cash-rich, a visit to Mai Leonard's, further down Castle Street, a sweet emporium unmatched in Castlebar at the time, was a must, where Mai, in her blue shop coat, would let you go behind the counter and select your purchases.

Traditionally, the parade always assembled at the Bacon Factory end of McHale Road and marched around the town, often taking different routes, and again ending at the Mall.

For weeks prior to the parade teachers in the local schools were busy preparing pupils in marching exercises while the school bands practised ad infinitum, particularly ‘Hail, Glorious St. Patrick’, so they would be note perfect for the big day.

Often the down side of the parade was, it being March, that the weather was not always kind and the youngsters decked out in their school uniforms and dancing costumes got a soaking. In later years, when they became fashionable, they donned plastic macs to counter the expected showers.

The marching bands were the life and soul of the parades and they could be heard streets away as the parade, snake-like, wound its way through the town.

The FCA colour party always led the parade, followed by the rifle-carrying, all in-step troops, only male then, with their boots smartly polished and their green uniforms sparkling.

In the 1960s I joined the FCA Fifth Cavalry in Castlebar and was part of the St. Patrick’s Day troop. The late Terry O’Donoghue from McHale Road made sure we were all in step and marching in unison. The reward for participation successfully was a lunch in a local restaurant.