Oh St. Patty's Day.

Every year on March 17th, millions of people join together in New York city for the legendary St. Patricks Day parade. The parade is used to commemorate the Irish immigrants as well as Irish-American heritage of many New Yorkers and Americans. This year, the parade attracted nearly 2 million who stood lining the parade route. However, not all was good for parade atendees, as well as a group, Irish Lesbian and Gay Organization, who were declined for the 16th year in a row from participating in the parade. Scandal over the controversial comments made by the parade chairman, John Dunleavy, compared gays to the KKK and Neo-Nazi's. Police were out in full force preventing any trouble, and though there were several small groups of protestors, everything went smoothly.

Today, there are about 44 million Irish living in the United States, the second largest ethnic group, only following German-Americans. New York, Chicago, and Boston, are the most heavily populated Irish cities in the country, Boston being the most celebratory of its strong Irish heritage. Before the Potato Famine, many irish immigrated because of religious laws, forcing them to become Anglican. At the time, the heavy Presbytarian population were unwilling to give up their beliefs, so they emigrated. During the great famine in the 1840's, millions of irish immigrated to the U.S. During this time nearly 1/3 of all immigrants were Irish. During the 1900's Irish-Americans began to move up on the social ladder. They were recieving equal wages and by 1945 had the highest college attendance rate of any ethnic group in the U.S. Today, St. Patricks day is an excuse for 5th generation irish immigrants to get drunk and wear green clothes. For the few who actually appreciate their irish roots, good for you. All 8.3 of me that is Irish is thankful for St. Patrick, who by the way is of Roman descent, and was born in Scotland, for giving us an excuse to eat corned beef.