Paddy and Tom grand marshals at North Westmeath parade

When the committee organising this year’s St Patrick’s Day Parade in Castlepollard sat down to decide on a theme, they came up with the idea of ‘Westmeath Legends’.

When it came to deciding on a marshal, there were at least two people locally to whom the epithet ‘legend’ could accurately be applied, and so the decision was made to grant the honour to both, Paddy McCabe, who is in his 90th year, and Tom Egan, who this year marks 60 years in business,

Always a popular and successful event, the St Patrick’s Day Parade in Castlepollard – known more formally as the North Westmeath St Patrick’s Day Parade – has seen participation numbers rising year on year and in 2024 they were thrilled to have more than 40 floats participating along with a host of bands and other musical acts as well as local clubs and organisations.

This year they anticipate that it will be even bigger, says Cllr Alfie Devine, a member of the committee who have been working on the preparations for the event for several months.

“We’re hoping to have one of the biggest parades in memory,” says Cllr Devine.

“There was a huge amount of entries last year, we’re hoping to have more this year, and the fact that it’s on a Monday – the actual bank holiday Monday – means, we hope that we get a real good crowd.”

The parade starts at 5pm from the Castle Varagh Hotel on the square in Castlepollard – but the entertainment and activities kick off at around 3pm.

“There’s usually a couple of thousand people in The Square, and the parade goes up around Glenview and back around again: it does a couple of rounds,” says Cllr Devine.

“The Mullingar Town Band are coming again, and there’s local dancers and musicians, and there are some musicians from other parts of the country coming to join in as well.

“We have the local Comhaltas doing music on the day as well, and we have entertainment for kids in the square – bouncy castles and that sort of thing. There’ll be a few stalls and there is a farmers market in the hotel as well, in the Hotel Castle Varagh on the day.”

The grand marshals are popular choices: Tom established his garage business six decades ago, while Paddy, before retiring, worked with Westmeath County Council and has also had a long involvement with the GAA.

The viewing platform will be based outside Comaskey’s Bar on The Square.

“We had around 40 floats taking part last year – and there are great prizes on offer, so we hope we will have even more this year. There are also prizes for things such as the best shop front window,” says Cllr Devine.

To facilitate the parade, the square will be closed to traffic from around 4.30pm. Disabled car parking will be available at the back of the library, and there are some parking spaces at the back of the hotel.

“We will have people marshalling and directing people for traffic,” says Cllr Devine.

The North Westmeath St Patrick’s Day Parade has a Facebook page and can also be found on Instagram as @northwestmeathstpatricksdayp.