South Side Irish Parade Canceled For Second Year

CHICAGO — The South Side Irish Parade will not be promenading down Western Avenue in 2021, the parade committee announced. This marks the second year that the parade has been canceled as the nation climbs out of the coronavirus pandemic.

“We’re heartbroken. It has been two years in a row now, it’s unprecedented,” said Mary Beth Sheehan, a member of the parade committee. “The parade has been going continuously since 1979. This is a time when people have a great need for cheer in their lives.”

Sheehan said the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events is holding off from issuing permits for the first quarter of 2021, which means the downtown St. Patrick’s Day parade is most likely cancelled too. The 2021 edition of the South Side Irish Parade was originally scheduled for Sunday, March 14.

The South Side Irish Parade Committee is putting the finishing touches on some COVID-19 safe alternative activities to celebrate Irish heritage. Those plans will be announced soon.

>>> Wee Folks To Western: A History Of The South Side Irish Parade

The parade took a few years off while organizers addressed returning the parade to its neighborhood and parish roots after busloads of rowdy parade goers from outside the Beverly/Morgan Park neighborhood turned the parade into a drunken bash. The parade has since been restored to a family-friendly celebration of their Irish heritage.

According to a history of the parade, its founders, the “Wee Folks of Washtenaw and Talman,” kept the tradition going during 2010 and 2011 when the parade took a hiatus, parading down the sidewalk on the east side of Western.

“We were never interrupted …,” Marianne Coakley, one of the original participants, told Patch in 2018.

The Wee Folk similarly kept the parade going last year, when members of the founding Coakley and Hendry families paraded down the sidewalk after events started being cancelled at the beginning of the pandemic.

“Last year was different because in those were the days when we were learning how serious COVID was,” Sheehan said. “We’re working hard at coming up with alternate activities.”

Sheehan added that the committee has "zero expectations" for the city changing its mind by allowing large public celebrations to continue before March 31.

"That is not something that we have even contemplated."