Navan won’t get to see its St Patrick’s Day parade turn town green until next year

News that Navan will not have a St Patrick's Day parade this year has been met with disappointment but organisers say the timescale is too tight and they also have a shortage of both funds and manpower to put on the event.

Navan is Meath's biggest parade and chair of the Shamrock Festival Committee Padraig Fitzsimons outlined that there were a number of reasons why they had reluctantly made the decision not to hold the event this year.

"There were a few reasons. Firstly the timescale was very tight. Also we need a new committee and by the time we formed one and got going, we wouldn't have had time. A few people stepped down and others moved out of the area so we only had four or five people left.

"The other thing is the cost of putting it on. It costs about €10,000 and we need to fundraise for this to pay bands, insurance, microphone and speaker hire, barriers, to name just a few of the big outlays. They alone come to around €7,000 and we haven't the money as we couldn't fundraise the last couple of years with Covid."

He also said that in a big town like Navan, people have a bigger expectations from the parade than in a smaller town.

"In Navan people expect a big parade and we do have a big parade with 50 to 60 floats but maybe people find it a bit repetitious and expect us to be operating at a level like Dublin where they have a budget of €4m while we have a budget of just €10,000.

"We did think about going ahead but we would be really struggling if we did it and would have been hoping for the best rather than knowing it would be good."

Cllr Fitzsimons said he got a good few calls and emails about the parade and felt like a bit of “killjoy”.

“People are disappointed, I felt rotten telling people it wasn't going ahead.”

However, Cllr Fitzsimons is already looking towards 2023 and said they will hold a preliminary meeting in September to form a new committee and is inviting new people to become involved.

“We need to reform and pull together and look at the parade and see what we can do to make it better.

“We need new blood and new ideas, and hope to incorporate new groups, and drive it on and be back better than ever for 2023."

Anyone interested in getting involved in next year's festival can email navanshamrockfestival@gmail.com or contact Padraig Fitzsimons.