It’s going to be a relatively modest affair compared to other parades in the area, but the first St. Patrick’s Day parade planned for Glenside in Montgomery County is a pretty big deal to its well-organized planners.
Members of the organizing committee met one evening recently around the dining room table at Noreen Donahue McAleer’s house not far from the proposed parade route. The parade—planned for March 8, 2025—is still months away, but the committee was already nailing down critical details.
Where will the vendors and food trucks set up, and how soon before the parade begins? Where to post the porta-potties, and how many? How to minimize the impact on Glenside Village businesses? How many kegs of beer for the post-parade festival? How many parade attendees to plan for, required for the parade permit?
They don’t have all the answers yet, but right now it’s easy to tell—this ambitious group will most assuredly dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s well before parade day. The organizing group, the Glenside St. Patrick’s Day Association, is already registered a 501c3 non-profit.
The parade is expected to travel several blocks along North Keswick Avenue, starting at Renninger Field, and south to the circle at Wharton Road and Donaldson Avenue in Keswick Village. The parade route may be short, but it will actually span small parts of both Abington and Cheltenham townships.
Not exactly the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade, but for a first attempt, manageable for the town and for this group of parade planners. And they’ll see where it goes from there in the future.
When the parade announcement was first posted on Facebook, it drew thousands of likes, McAleer says. There’s obviously a groundswell of support for the parade.
The idea was hatched last fall at a community meeting, McAleer says.
“We were talking about ideas that we would like to bring to Glenside to promote family interactions,” she explains. “And I said, with so many Irish in Glenside, I think a St. Patrick’s Day parade would be really, really popular. Jamey Piggott, who runs the Glenside 4th of July parade, saw my comment. He said he would help, and then we formed a committee, and the rest is history.”
The event may be eight months away, but the parade and festival are already shaping up. The parade will start at 1 p.m., followed by the festival from 2 to 6 p.m.
“We’ll have maybe four local bands, floats, four or five Irish dance schools, and local organizations such as the MacSwiney Club and the Sean MacBride Ancient Order of Hibernians,” McAleer says.
For the post-parade festival, there will be plenty of food and other refreshments, activities for the kids, and tunes from a few local Irish bands, including The Shantys, The Natterjacks and The Derry Brigade.
If you want to help support the effort, several fundraisers are in the planning stage, but one is scheduled: a Halfway to St. Patrick’s Day party at Jerzee’s Sports Bar at 2609 Mt. Carmel Avenue in Glenside on Sept. 28, planned from 4 to 8 p.m.
You can also make online contributions at the parade website: https://spd19038.com
