Montréal’s St. Patrick’s Day parade turns 200: 10 fun facts

1. The Montréal St. Patrick’s Day Parade is the longest-running of its kind in Canada, uninterrupted from 1824 until 2019 when it was forced to cancel during the pandemic in 2020 and 2021. The parade was actually cancelled once before, in 1918, for various reasons some ascribed to controversies over WWI conscription, but Montrealers defied the city’s orders and paraded nonetheless.

2. The three-hour parade features hundreds of floats, marching bands, local celebrities, performers and revellers marching eastward along main downtown artery De Maisonneuve Boulevard from Fort Street to Jeanne-Mance Street. Attendance runs anywhere from 250,000 to 700,000, depending on the weather, which can range from wintry, postcard-like snowiness to sunny, summery balminess.

3. The first St. Patrick’s Day celebration in Montréal was held in 1759 by the Irish soldiers of the Montréal Garrison, three years before the start of New York’s famed parade.

4. The first Irish person arrived in Canada in approximately 1661. Tadhg Cornelius O’Brennan came to Montréal in a wave of Irish Catholics escaping war, poor harvests and a severe penal system. Almost two centuries later, Thomas D’Arcy McGee was elected to public office and went on to become a Father of Confederation in 1867.

5. The Black Rock, or Irish Commemorative Stone, was the first memorial to the Great Famine anywhere in the world. It was placed in Montréal near the Victoria Bridge, which spans the St. Lawrence River, to commemorate the deaths of 6,000 Irish immigrants who died in a typhus epidemic and were buried in the area in 1847.

6. Irish immigration grew over the years, prompting several different groups to organize the parade since 1824, including businessman Michael Sullivan of the St. Patrick’s Society of Montréal, Montréal’s Irish Catholic parishes, the Irish Protestant Benevolent Society, the Ancient Order of Hibernians and the United Irish Societies of Montreal, created in 1928. 

7. The official flag of the city of Montréal acknowledges the contributions of the Irish, depicting a green shamrock in one of the flag’s quadrants, along with a blue fleur-de-lys for the French, red Rose of Lancaster for the English and Welsh, a thistle for the Scots, and a white pine tree for the Indigenous peoples, representing peace and harmony.

8. The parade not only boasts a Grand Marshal in a black top hat (a flattering green if the Marshal is a woman), a Queen and a Princess, and the Pipes and Drums of the Black Watch Royal Highland Regiment of Canada, but numerous other community groups that reflect the diversity of the city.

9. Family history is recounted and many a tall tale of parades gone by are told in the several authentic Irish pubs (and Irish-for-a-day bars) handily located mere steps from the parade route.

10. We already know how much fun the Montréal St. Patrick’s Day parade is, but don’t just take our word for it: National Geographic voted Montréal’s as one of the top 10 St. Patrick’s Day celebrations in the world, and Fodor’s ranks it among the biggest and best as well.

Don’t miss out on a chance to raise a pint of Guinness in one of the most Irish cities outside of the Emerald Isle itself – sláinte!