Shit is getting real this year. Not only is St-Patrick’s Day the most anticipated and celebrated holiday in Montreal (even more so than St-Jean, I would argue), but this year it falls squarely on a Saturday night. What does that even mean?! It means that if you plan to attend the famous and glorious St-Patrick’s Day Parade (which you do, btw) then you’ll need to scrape yourself together in pretty rapid fashion on Sunday morning. Don’t make that face. The Weather Network is currently predicting sun and a daily high of 17 degrees for Parade Day. Last year it was cold. The year before that it pissed rain. Hangover or not, you’re going.

Good, I’m glad that’s settled then. Here are a few tips:

1. Crash downtown at a friend’s place Saturday night – assuming you don’t live downtown already – so that you’ll be mere steps away from the parade route (namely, all of St-Catherine West) when the action begins.

2. Throw on the green attire/accessories you wore the night before. They are still good, though possibly slightly stained and squishy.

3. Wear sunglasses. It will be a sunny day and your ‘hangover eyes’ won’t give away your present physical state (exhausted and headachey) to strangers.

4. Try and grab a parade-viewing chunk of sidewalk near Concordia – roughly, Guy and St-Catherine – so that a bathroom is readily at hand should last night’s Jameson shots make an abrupt decision to join the morning’s festivities (read: puking on the sidewalk is the least classy option in this scenario/ever)

5. Pocket a few cans of beer. There, I said it. Everyone drinks along the parade route (discreetly, of course) and there is definitely something to be said for a ‘morning-after’ beer. Or bourbon.

Pass these tips along and enlist your friends! Once the smiling children/radio personalities/mascots begin to pass by, and the waving/shouting/horn-blowing (maybe not the horn-blowing) commences, you’ll be very happy to be standing in the sun with your friends and your Irish spirit for this timeless and annual Montreal tradition. 

The parade starts at noon on Sunday, March 18. For more information, take a gander at their official website!

montrealirishparade.com

~ Tyler Yank