Halfway To St. Patrick’s Day Parade Planned In Patchogue

PATCHOGUE, NY — You’ve heard of Christmas in July, right?

Well, there will now be St. Patrick’s Day in September, kind of.

Patchogue's parade is usually one of the last to go off on the Long Island, but it's looking like it will be the first this year. Because there has not been a parade in Patchogue in two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Chamber of Commerce is organizing a Halfway to St. Patrick’s Day Parade on Sept. 19.

The chamber’s Executive Director David Kennedy said that it was “in an effort to right this wrong,” that the St. Patrick's Committee, which is part of the Greater Patchogue Foundation's Cultural Heritage Committee, “figured out that when we reach the middle of September, we are half-way to St. Patrick's Day.”

“So why wait?” Kennedy wrote in an email to chamber members on Monday, adding, “Let's celebrate that.”

The parade will kick off on Sept. 19 over what the chamber is now calling Cultural Heritage Weekend. The weekend starts with the Annual Hispanic Heritage Celebration at the Patchogue Theater on Sept. 17 and then continues with the Italian Feast of St. Liberata on Sept. 18.

Patchogue Business Improvement District Executive Director Dennis Smith, who was chosen to lead the parade back in December 2019, will kick off the line of march.

More details will be released about the parade in the coming weeks.