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Raleigh St. Patrick’s Day Parade Saved By Police, Guinness, And Sponsors

By Edward James, The Raleigh Telegram

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

RALEIGH - After the City of Raleigh dropped its financial support of the annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade, if not for the Raleigh Police Department and some private sponsors, the 28th annual parade and festival would have been canceled.

According to Frank Mellage, a retired IBM executive and one of the organizers of the parade, the festivities will proceed as planned despite the elimination of funding from the city.

“We were able to get some key sponsors,” said Mellage. Those private sponsors include Guinness Beer, the Shanahan Law Group, and others such as Napper Tandy’s, TirNaNog, Empire Eats, McLaurin Parking, and others.

The parade is put on every year by the Raleigh St. Patrick's Day Parade & Wearin' O' the Green Festival, a non-profit committee and is one of the largest St. Patty’s Day parades in the Southeast, usually drawing thousands of people.

“We’re just a group of people who want to make sure there's a parade,” said Mellage of the committee.

City Cuts Funding

Mellage said before this March, the City of Raleigh had donated around $20,000 in services every year to the parade.

The city had always gotten an ABC permit to sell beer after the parade and had recouped around $10,000 of that in beer sales to offset some of the costs, he added.

This year, despite funding other events such as the new Winter Festival, the City of Raleigh told the parade committee that they would no longer be helping out with the event.

"What I was told is that the city is no longer in the business of providing funding for any event they don’t run themselves,” said Mellage.

"[That policy], it's brand new to us,” he added.

In a statement sent to the Raleigh Telegram, a spokesperson for the City of Raleigh said late last year that Raleigh decided to use the money to fund other events.

“The City’s formula for events such as parades is to provide support to help organizations get on their feet,” said Raleigh spokesperson Jayne Kirkpatrick in December.

“When they have matured, the City moves on to direct its very limited resources to seed other events. The City of Raleigh has provided around $10,000 in services to the St. Patrick’s Day Parade committee for each of the past 20 years. This year the City’s support will be limited to providing staging, tables, bike racks and chairs.”

Kirkpatrick added that budget cutbacks forced them to examine their spending.

“Also, these are times of greatly reduced public funding,” she said. “The City is being as careful with its resources as possible.”

Raleigh Police Department

Mellage said that he did not want to criticize the City of Raleigh for cutting their funding as they are still providing police protection and traffic direction at no charge.

He said that in other cities such as Charlotte, organizers for downtown events sometimes have to shell out big bucks to pay for police traffic direction, etc.

“If we had to do that, there wouldn't be a parade,” said Mellage.

Mellage was very complimentary of Raleigh Police Chief Harry Dolan who has pledged his continued help to keep the parade going.

“He said ‘with a name like Harry Patrick Dolan, you can bet I’m going to support the parade,’" Mellage said, quoting the police chief who has also been a parade marshal in the past.

In a statement to the Telegram, the Raleigh Police Department said they were happy to help out with the parade’s traffic needs.

“The St. Patrick’s Day parade is a long standing City sponsored event,’ said Darrell Salmon, the Raleigh Police Department Major of Special Operations Division.

“Throughout the years, the Raleigh Police Department has undoubtedly supported it and will continue to do so,” he added.

The Parade This Year

The St. Patrick’s parade this year will be held this year in the downtown area as usual. The parade will start on Wilmington Street and will wind its way around downtown back to Moore Square near Blount Street and Martin Street.

TIME: The parade starts at 12pm noon on Saturday, March 13th.

GRAND MARSHAL: Meteorologist Bill Reh from NBC17

FESTIVAL EVENTS: Held in Moore Square, the Festival events draw as many people as the parade and include traditional Irish dancing, beer, music, craft sales, and more.

NATIONAL ANTHEM: Starting right after the Parade, local singer/songwriter Jamie Purnell will sing the National Anthem.

SKYDIVE TEAM: Look to the sky to see the Patriotic Parachute Team from Fort Bragg jump right onto Martin Street.

BANDS AND MUSIC: In addition to headliner bands Homeland and Eire Lingus, other music acts include:

1:45 NC State Pipe and Drums

2:05 Inis Cairde Irish Dancers

2:25 Jo Moore Scottish Dancers

2:45 Danny Tighe Irish Dancers

3:05 Grace Christian Irish Dance Troupe

3:25 Rince Go Halainn Irish Dance Academy

3:45 Ghosts of Erin

In addition, other events will be held at TirNaNog Irish Pub across from Moore Square and at Napper Tandy’s Irish Pub in the Power House district at the intersection of West and Jones Streets.

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