OUR SECOND ST Patrick’s Day during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The big St Patrick’s Day parade in Dublin is off, along with the glorious local ones made up of the local GAA team and musicians in a trailer being pulled by a tractor – but RTÉ has brought back its virtual parade for people to take part in.

The St Patrick’s Festival isn’t being held in person, but there are loads of online events being held that may pique your interest instead, or work as a nice accompaniment to whatever you have planned.

Here’s a taster of what’s on – see the full list here.

St Patrick’s Festival TV

You can watch a whole host of different events here on St Patrick’s Festival TV, aka SPF TV. There have been a number of events running since the weekend, but here’s some of what’s on today (Solas x Soulé at 9pm looks particularly good):

SPF TV SPF TV

SPF TV SPF TV

Foil Arms and Hog skits

The comedic trio are among those commissioned by the St Patrick’s Festival to do skits for SPF TV and for the parade’s social media accounts. Here’s the brief, and an enjoyable clip:

“Irish sketch comedy group Foil Arms and Hog have created new sketches for St Patrick’s Festival 2021 to lift your mood and make you laugh, as they observe our national idiosyncrasies, particularly pertaining to the St Patrick’s holiday.”

A virtual parade

The RTÉ virtual parade is being held online again this year, where people can share videos or images of people performing for the parade – even if it’s just wheeling around in a tiny plastic car with a green jumper on.

Share your image or video to social media with the hashtag#RTEVirtualParade, and keep an eye on the @rte Twitter account. The parade will also be shown on SPF TV.

New York City and X are among the cities around the world also streaming virtual parades throughout the day.

Christmas FM, but make it St Patrick

The annual Christmas radio station is popping-up today for St Patrick’s Day.

The ‘This is Ireland’ station will showcase and celebrate Irish songs and stories for St Patrick’s Day from 6am for 24 hours, with live presenters all throughout the day.

This is a new partnership from the Christmas FM team and Novatone Music Media, and is a trial run, with “a view to running an expanded station in future”.

If you want to say hello to family and friends around the world, you can:

1. Record your greeting on your phone in a quiet location (keep your message to 30-60 seconds)
2. Email it to ireland@christmasfm.com

Christmas FM Christmas FM

Something for the kids

This is a great one: The Irish Emigration Museum has provided a free St Patrick’s Day Activity Pack for kids – you’ll just need to print it out. 

With the pack, you can:

• Discover the history of St Patrick’s Day from the story of Patrick himself
• Learn about the national holidays other countries celebrate around the world
• Fill out word searches, trivia quizzes and create your own Celtic Cross
• Use a guide to create green slime at home.

You can download the PDF here. 

EPIC EPIC

Going green

There is an incredible 690 buildings and landmarks across 66 different countries being lit with green lights today to celebrate St Patrick’s Day – including the Leaning Tower of Pisa, Niagara Falls, the Sydney Opera House, the ‘Welcome’ sign in Las Vegas, Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro, Burj Al Arab in Dubai, the Prince’s Palace of Monaco and the Cibeles Fountain in Madrid.

It’s a new record number of buildings, with new landmarks such as the Cairo Tower in Egypt among the new landmarks taking part.