Rochester St. Patrick’s Day Parade announcement

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WHEC) – After a two-year hiatus, the streets of Rochester will once again be a sea of green.

On Friday, the City of Rochester and Monroe County announced the return of the popular TOPS St. Patrick’s Day parade.

“The pandemic is waning, and we are back. We are back together, we’re celebrating together and we’re participating in a tremendous quality of life,” said Adam Bello, Monroe County Executive.

As we enter into the month of March, county and city officials are not wasting any time to make a proclamation.

“We, Malik Evans, Mayor of the City of Rochester, New York and Adam Bello, do hereby proclaim the month of March 2022 to be Irish-American heritage month,” Mayor Evans said.

The St. Patrick’s Day parade was one of the first main public events canceled in Rochester, then came a deluge of canceled events and a world lockdown

“It’s been three years since our city’s last St Patrick’s Day parade, and for too long, our community has been without gatherings and events because we were responsible,” Evans said. “We stayed home, we wore our masks we all got vaccinated, but we’ve come a long way to where we can finally be together to celebrate again.”

With St. Patrick’s Day right around the corner this month, leaders and organizations are eager to bring back the staple event in the community and return to normalcy.

“The parade is our biggest and best showcase for American and Irish culture,” said James Gilmore, committee chair for the Irish-American Heritage Committee. “It’s great to have the parade back, live – it’s great to have everybody here kicking off the month. It’s going to be a wonderful time, and I everybody’s going to come out in droves.”

This year’s TOPS Rochester’s St. Patrick’s Day parade will begin at 12:30 p.m. next Saturday, March 12 beginning at East Avenue and Alexander Street and will end at Main and Fitzhugh Streets.

The full announcement is in the video in the player below (mobile users, click here):