St Patrick's Day street festival planned for Ratoath

Ratoath will not hold a traditional St Patrick's Day Parade this year and instead the committee has decided to go ahead with a street festival.

Cllr Nick Killian said they met on Thursday night and felt it was too late from a parade perspective and that they would instead hold a street festival.

He explained that they need to spend a lot of money in preparation for the parade but also that getting floats was the big issue.

The Ratoath parade usually links in with Ashbourne so that floats and bands can take part in both and with Ashbourne not going ahead, they were having difficulty getting floats. He also explained they had difficulty getting bands and some weren't available this year as they hadn't been able to practice because of Covid.

Cllr Killian said that because they had already applied to Meath County Council for the road closure, they still wanted to do something and have a celebration in the village.

"We have the outdoor gig rig so we decided to put on a concert and have Irish dancers and local singers and give them a chance to entertain people. It will be free of charge and there will be face painting for the children. We want to create a festival and will also be working with the community centre who will be putting on something on the day as well."

The event will start at 12 and continue until about 2.30pm.

"We are asking people to come all dressed up and there will be prizes and vouchers."