Irish PM joins St. Patrick's parade while the force is strong in Dublin

NEW YORK - Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar joined along as Manhattan's Fifth Avenue came alive with the sound of bagpipes, trumpets and lots of green on Saturday at the 257th running of New York City's St. Patrick's Day parade.

Several bagpipe bands led a parade made up of more than 100 marching bands after Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo spoke briefly, calling it a "day of inclusion" and adding: "We're all immigrants."

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, also a Democrat, marched with police Commissioner James O'Neill under sunny skies.

The parade, beginning at 11 am, lasted nearly six hours. An estimated 150,000 marchers made the 2.2-kilometer trek past Central Park, the Cathedral and Trump Tower.

Large since the mid-1800s, the parade has celebrated Irish culture and Irish immigrants, who once faced nativist calls for their exclusion from the workforce and from the country when they began arriving in the city in huge numbers during the Irish Famine.

For the 167th time, the lead group marching in the parade was 800 members of the 1st Battalion, 69th Infantry Regiment, of the New York Army National Guard. Cuomo joined them. The regiment, once predominantly made up of Irish immigrants, first led the parade in 1851 as a deterrent to anti-immigrant violence.

Judy Hughes, whose father used to march with the 69th Infantry Regiment, also known as the "Fighting Irish," said she's been attending the parade "since I was a little girl."

Her husband, Bill Hughes, a retired police officer who marched in the parade for 10 years, looked on as a band passed.

"It's better being on the other side," he said.

This year's grand marshal was Loretta Brennan Glucksman, chairwoman of The American Ireland Fund, a group that has raised millions of dollars for philanthropic projects in Ireland, including funding for integrated schools for Catholic and Protestant children in Northern Ireland.

The parade was a familiar occasion for Matthew McCrosson, 68, who has frequently marched in it during the past half-century.

"The parade truly signifies the Irish investment over 250 years in the greater New York area," McCrosson said. "The parade represents not only Irish, but people from all nationalities."

Guest of honor

Meanwhile, Mark Hamill tweeted that "today the whole galaxy is Irish" as he appeared as international guest of honor at Dublin's St. Patrick's Day parade.

The Star Wars actor, whose great-grandmother was born in Ireland, was invited to represent the Irish diaspora at the celebration. Hamill spent time on Ireland's rocky Skellig Michael island filming the most recent Star Wars movie, The Last Jedi.

Hamill sported a tweed cap, a green scarf and a shamrock sprig as he attended the parade, which sees floats, colorfully clad performers and marching bands wind their way through the Irish capital.

Game of Thrones actor Liam Cunningham was the grand marshal of Saturday's parade, attended by Irish President Michael D. Higgins.

Associated Press