United Irish Societies organize Cleveland?s 175th annual St. Patrick?s Day Parade
Back in 1842, five years before the Diocese of Cleveland was established, Father Peter McLaughlin organized the earliest-known St. Patrick?s Day Parade in the city. Father McLaughlin, a proponent of temperance (abstaining from alcohol), was Cleveland?s third resident priest. The celebration began with Mass at St. Mary?s on the Flats, the only Catholic church in the city limits at that time, continued with a parade of the Catholic Temperance Society and ended with a banquet attended by family and friends.
As the United Irish Societies, an umbrella organization of Irish organizations, prepares to sponsor the 2017 parade, the day?s festivities follow the same formula: Mass, parade and a banquet.