Irish Americans and Clevelanders of all backgrounds gathered by the thousands along Euclid Avenue to celebrate the paramount Irish holiday, St. Patrick’s Day. For days, though, Blue Streaks and Clevelanders generally have been celebrating through song, dance and coming together to say “sláinte,” or cheers, with and to the greater Cleveland community.
The holiday, falling on March 17 was a Monday this year and, consequently, many celebrations were over the weekend. The largest of these seems to have been the St Patty’s Day Bar Crawl Cleveland, sponsored by BarCrawlLive. Across the two days it was held, both dates were sold out for general admission tickets and all of the five participating bars were at capacity for both nights, which saw celebrants spill out onto West 6th from 7 p.m. until midnight on March 14 and from 2 p.m. to 9 p.m. on March 15.
One participant, Christine Thomas ’25, said “This was a fun way to celebrate after spring break” and was surprised how many John Carroll faces were present, as there “were at least two Carroll kids” for every non-member of the JCU community in line grabbing tickets for the event.
Numbers did swell though as the Cleveland St. Patrick’s Day Run ended. The race, recognized as one of the larger charity events of the year in Cleveland, had roughly 850 participants for the 3.1-mile run which started on North Marginal Road along Lake Erie, crested the Brown’s stadium and finished along West 6th where partygoers were ready to celebrate both the holiday and the runner.
The race, organized by the Irish American Charitable Foundation, was sponsored by the local bars of West 6th as well as major brands such as Jameson Whiskey America and Ohio’s own Raising Cane’s. Outside of the thousands of runners and hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations raised over the years, the race is also known for its kilts, as it was recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the world record holder for the largest sport kilt race.
Though many did choose to celebrate over the weekend, the official celebrations were held off until 1:04 p.m. on St. Patrick’s Day, when parade-goers stepped off to begin Cleveland’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade. The parade, which has brought Clevelanders together since 1842, saw over 10,000 attendees participate in the storied celebration of Irish-American culture.
Ending at The Cleveland Arcade, parade-goers were able to dance, sing and enjoy bagpipers, traditional Irish singers, tap dancers and Irish drums from the five tiers of the arcade. Kathyrn Visco ’23, an alumna of the Boler School of Business was able to take all of it in, noting “I never see this many people out anywhere anymore” and that “If it was not for all the green, you’d just see people being happy and coming out for each other.”
Overall, through the long weekend, beyond the green, gold and clovers, Clevelanders seem to have been coming together for the sake of coming together, at least in the views of attendees like Thomas and Visco.
The Arcade Cleveland on St. Patrick’s Day – Kathryn Visco ‘’23
