Sydney St Patrick's Day Parade & Festival

Revellers will flock to The Rocks on Sunday 20th March to celebrate all things Irish at the globally renowned Sydney St. Patrick’s Day Parade & Festival. This family-friendly, free event will see a welcome return of the much-loved parade, plenty of toe-tapping live music, world-class Irish dancing, Irish language lessons, crafts, face-painting, bars, food stalls and much more as we raise a glass to the Irish patron Saint.

Pipe bands, stilt walkers, Irish dancers and the hugely popular children’s character, JJ from CoComelon will be amongst the 1,500 marchers from more than 50 groups taking part in the parade. Kicking off at 10.30am, the parade will begin at the corner of Hickson Road and George Street, making its way down George St. and ending in First Fleet Park to open the day’s festivities. The festival itself begins at 11am with the Main Stage area in First Fleet Park and Children’s Area on the MCA Lawn.

Fun for the kids
The popular Children’s area will be the first port of call for families with the free craft tent and face-painters starting from 11am. CoComelon fans will have the opportunity to have their photo taken with JJ as he makes his NSW debut from 11.30am. The YouTube channel has amassed a whopping 130 million subscribers as they sing and dance their way learning numbers, letters and more. For the youngest festival goers, this is sure to be the highlight!

Main Stage
A traditional smoking ceremony will officially open the Main Stage at 11.45am before the well-loved children’s band, The Vegetable Plot take to the stage. A jam-packed schedule sees the best of music and Irish dance throughout the day until 6pm with Shaylee Wilde, The Bottlers, Medusa’s Wake and dance performances from Irish Beats, Kennedy Dance School and Dwyer Whelan keeping the crowds entertained.

Group Irish Dance Performance
More than 200 dancers will line the foreshore at 2pm to perform the traditional set dance, St. Patrick’s Day, perfectly in sync. Dating back to the early twentieth century, the steps of St. Patrick’s Day are known and performed by Irish dancers all over the world. With close to 30 Irish dance schools in NSW, most will be represented along with members of the public who have been busy learning the steps.

A wonderful selection of market stalls selling all your favourite Irish goodies will be trading throughout the day and there will be plenty of traditional Irish dance on show with performances scheduled in the Children’s area from 12 noon – 4.30pm. Drag queen performances and storytelling will add plenty of pizazz A pop-up Gaeltacht and games for the kids and trivia ‘as gaeilge’ for the adults will take place in the Tir na nOg tent and will have festival goers conversing in the native Irish tongue!

Two unique citizenship ceremony will take place with the support of the Australian Department of Home Affairs where 40 people will receive their Australian citizenship at the festival and another 40 will receive theirs on St. Patrick’s Day, March 17th.

Another highlight of this year’s festival is the Visible Women Presentation from the Consulate General of Ireland, Sydney, sharing stories, memories and the inspiration of prominent Irish and Australian Women.