While the Stonewall riots were a spontaneous eruption of anger against police harassment, they had been a long time in the making, and while the riots lasted only a few days, their repercussions continue to this day. After Stonewall, things could never go back to how they were before. But most will never visit Ireland.Baird’s story is echoed in the accounts of thousands of LGBTQ+ people across the the world. Like other ethnic groups, they want to remember their roots as immigrants. “They are about celebrating Irish America. “St Patrick’s Day parades all over the USA are not ‘celebrating Ireland’,” said Walsh D’Arcy, a co-chair of the St Pat’s For All parade. She challenges the assumption it is a religious parade, saying it is an Irish cultural and political parade that gives Irish Americans a chance to celebrate the history and culture of the diaspora. Kathleen Walsh D’Arcy marched in the Fifth Avenue parade every year as a girl, sometimes in her Irish dancing costume, but has not participated for many years because of the exclusion of gay groups. He notes anti-abortion advocates are also welcome to march, but they are not allowed to carry anti-abortion signs: “It is not about barring gays – it is about barring any contingent, group, banner or sign that brings attention to any cause other than what is being celebrated on the day.” “We certainly need our parades and our cultural events to reflect more the shift that we are experiencing in Ireland and Irish America.”īill Donohue, president of the New York-based Catholic League and an Irish citizen, says LGBT groups want to “impose their own identity” on the parade. “It would be a distortion to easily stereotype Irish America or what we are seeing happening back home,” said Fay. He believes the Fifth Avenue parade “sends out the message of Ireland of the Unwelcomes” and is not reflective of Ireland and Irish America today. Tensions between LGBT groups and organisers of the parades may not be as high as in the 1990s when there were arrests and legal challenges over the exclusion of gay pride groups, but the gulf between the factions is still as wide.īrendan Fay, from Drogheda, founded the St Pat’s For All parade in Sunnyside, Queens, in 2000.It includes LGBT groups and de Blasio has attended in the past. I’ve had some conversations early on and they have been very good conversations.” And it’s something that I’m working with. “In 2014, it’s time for the parade to be an inclusive parade. I hope ,” he told the Boston Herald this week. Kenny will be in Boston on March 16th, the day of the parade, and Walsh hopes to broker a compromise. Gilmore has said the Government should be represented at the Manhattan parade, which is attended by more than a million people, but said the rules should be changed.īoston’s newly elected mayor Marty Walsh, the son of Connemara immigrants, is taking over where predecessor Tom Menino left off and is refusing to attend the South Boston parade if the organisers won’t allow gays and lesbians to march. Kenny has said he will participate in Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue parade, the biggest in the city, which mayor Bill de Blasio is boycotting. He is visiting two cities where mayors have taken stands against the exclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) groups. This year Taoiseach Enda Kenny is juggling with awkward local politics in Irish America on his annual St Patrick’s Day visit.
Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore skipped a visit to Savannah, Georgia, home to the largest and oldest St Patrick’s Day celebrations in the American south, on a trip to the region last year because it would have involved attending a men-only dinner hosted by the Hibernian Society of Savannah. Last year, Irish Ambassador to the US Anne Anderson asked the oldest Irish-American group, the Friendly Sons of St Patrick, to consider changing its name to the “Friendly Sons and Daughters of St Patrick” to be more inclusive. The decisions by the New York City and Boston mayors to boycott St Patrick’s Day parades over the exclusion of gay, lesbian and transgender groups raises questions about whether Irish-American groups are out of step with the progressive changes in Irish society and beyond.Ĭalls for inclusion extend beyond these groups too.