Montreal’s 200th St. Patrick’s Day Parade kicks off on Sunday, hundreds of thousands expected

Montreal’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade is celebrating its 200th anniversary this Sunday, and to mark the milestone birthday, half a million people are expected to attend the festivities this weekend that are taking place at noon along De Maisonneuve Boulevard.

“We’re looking forward to celebrating with everyone,” said Madison Lalonde, a Princess of the 2025 St. Patrick’s Day Parade. “Being there to say hi and welcome them into our community.”

“We have a theme this year for the parade,” said Lori Morrison, President of the United Irish Societies Of Montreal. “It’s Emerald Connections, 200 Years of Unity and Community.”

“And community is something that is so important to the Irish people,” she added.

On Friday, officials of the United Irish Societies of Montreal, along with the queen and princesses of the parade met at the Lord William Pub in Montreal’s Griffintown to kick off the celebrations.

“I’m really excited to see all the young girls attending the parade and being there for them,” explained Bernice Djaballah, a Princess of the 2025 St. Patrick’s Day Parade. “Like I was as a child and seeing myself in them.”

“It really is an honour,” said Amanda Keating, Queen of the 2025 St. Patrick’s Day Parade. “I feel like we’re a part of Montreal’s history and I feel like Montreal is coming together to celebrate this history.”

“I’m excited to see the kids’ faces because I’ve never been on the side where I could see the spectators,” she added.

The queen and princesses of the parade are selected through a rigorous process — each playing a vital role in the parades traditions and honouring the role of women.

“Don’t get distracted by the tiara and the cape, which are very fun and blingy,” explained Djaballah. “But we’re really here to represent our community and to be role models for younger girls who might see and might find it easier to find us in the crowns and capes.”

“It being the 200th year is such a great honour to be a part of,” added Lalonde. “It kind of broadcast or shows how much the Irish community has done here in Montreal.”

The parade first started on Saint-Paul Street in 1824 with officials saying this parade is older than the one held in Dublin. 

At the end of the 19th century and until 1900, the Irish were the second largest ethnocultural group in Montreal and contributed to the industrialization of the city.

“We’re celebrating the Canadian Irish aspect of all of many generations of past and built, helped build Canada, helped build Montreal,” explained Danny Doyle, Grand Marshall of this year’s parade.

“If you look at Montreal flag,” he added. “There’s shamrock right on there.”

This year, Doyle is dedicating his walk to his father, and ‘the Doyle clan.”

“I’m wearing my uncle’s hat, my father’s oldest brother,” he explained. “He wore it in 1950 since the real McCoy, so I take care of that hat and his family gave it to me because we used to run a lot of Irish parties.”

“It’s very important to us, those of Irish heritage, to preserve this tradition,” said Morrison. “And to preserve what we’ve brought to the city of Montreal.”

This year’s parade features over 120 groups from various communities and will have 5,000 participants to celebrate Irish history and help unite Montrealers – as it’s been doing for 200 years.

“It really does bring together the communit,” said Alexia Brausewetter-Day, a princess of the 2025 St. Patrick’s Day Parade. “Its really impressive, to see how even though were not all Irish – even though we are all Irish – on St. Patrick’s Day, how it unites just like the city of Montreal in general.”