St Patrick's Day in Monaghan
Monaghan does St Patrick’s Day the way most Irish towns of its size do it. There is a parade in the afternoon, the centre shuts to traffic for a couple of hours, and more or less every school, club and business in the town that can build a float builds one. It is not Dublin, and it does not try to be. It is over inside an hour and the pubs are full afterwards.
The parade in Monaghan town
The town parade runs on 17 March itself, in the afternoon rather than the morning. In recent years it has formed up at the shopping centre car park on the north side of the town, come in through the centre, and finished around Old Cross Square. Monaghan County Council organises it and sets a theme each year that entrants are asked to work into their floats, and there are prizes for the best of them.
There is normally music and entertainment in the Diamond before the parade proper, so the crowd gathers for a while beforehand rather than turning up on the hour. If you want a spot on the footpath at the Diamond or Church Square, come early. The town centre is narrow and it fills.
The start time and the route are confirmed by the organisers each year, and both have changed before now. The council publishes the dates and times for every parade in the county a few weeks ahead on monaghan.ie. Check that, not a guide like this one.
The rest of the county
Monaghan town is not the only parade, and it is not always the first one. Recent county council listings have included parades at Clones, Carrickmacross, Ballybay, Inniskeen, Newbliss and Oram. Some run at midday and some in mid afternoon, so if you are willing to drive it is possible to catch two in a day.
The Carrickmacross parade is the largest in the south of the county and is run by the municipal district with the local street festival committee. It is a long standing thing rather than a recent revival, and it fills the main street.
The village parades are a different proposition entirely. They are short, the whole community is either in them or watching them, and they are worth going to for exactly that reason. Do not expect them to run to the minute.
Not every town holds a parade every year, and the list changes. Take the council’s published list as the current one.
Road closures and parking
The council makes a temporary road closure order for the town centre each year, and the streets on the route are shut for a window either side of the parade. Through traffic is diverted around the town on the N2 bypass and the approach roads, and local access to the centre and to the courthouse car park is normally kept open from one or two directions. Bus services can terminate short of the centre while the closure is in place.
The practical version of that: park on the edge of the town and walk in, and do it well before the closure comes into effect rather than after. If you arrive an hour beforehand you will find the town centre car parks already busy. If you arrive fifteen minutes beforehand you will find the roads you wanted closed.
The exact streets and the closure times are published each year in the council’s road closure notices. They are not the same every year.
What else there is
It is a bank holiday, so a good deal of the town is shut apart from the pubs and the food places, and both of those are busy. If you have travelled for the parade and want the rest of the day filled, the things to do page covers the museum, the forest park and the four squares, though check what is open on the day itself.
For roads, buses and the drive up from Dublin or over from Belfast, see getting here. If 17 March falls midweek the buses run a holiday timetable, which is thinner than the normal one in both directions.
The one thing to take from this page
Everything above describes what usually happens. Dates fall on different weekdays, routes get changed, times move, and a parade that ran last year may not run this year. The organisers confirm the details each year and they are the only source worth trusting on the day. Check before you travel.
Details on this page last checked . If something here is out of date, it probably is our fault rather than yours.