‘St. Pat’s For All’ Parade

The Keltic Dream Dancers, including nine-year-old Keila Kowlessar (front, left) from P.S. 59, in the Bronx kicked off the 2008 “St Pat’s For All,” held on Sunday, March 2. The all-inclusive parade, the ninth annual in Sunnyside, began at 43rd Street and Skillman Avenue and finished at 61st Street and Woodside Avenue.
“At gatherings like this everybody is Irish,” joked Co-Chair Brendan Fay (second photo, left) before the parade got underway. “Even [Senator] Barack Obama has discovered he’s Irish. He’s from County Offaly, so [Parade Co-Chair Kathleen Walsh D’Arcy] is happy.”
This year’s Grand Marshalls, journalist Pete Hamill (second photo, center) and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn (second photo, right) were given their sashes by one of the 2006 Grand Marshalls, Author Malachy McCourt.
During a short speech before marching, Quinn said that every year the Sunnyside parade was held, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) marchers were one step closer to being allowed to march in the annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Manhattan.
“We are marching directly to Fifth Avenue,” she said.
Quinn also told the crowd that she had got her fighting spirit from her grandmother, who as a 15-year-old girl riding in steerage on the famed Titanic was one of few to escape.
“When the other girls dropped to their knees to pray, she took a run for it,” Quinn said.