A City Ruled by Red and Blue Gets a Healthy Dose of Green

Locals and Visitors Revel in Pomp of St. Patrick's Parade

Braving a blustery spring wind, thousands of honorary Irishfolk lined Constitution Avenue yesterday to cheer and wave at an eclectic St. Patrick's Day parade that included Bolivian folk dancers, Shriners in mini-Corvettes, dog-training clubs, kilted bagpipers, veterans from the Battle of the Bulge, Ultimate Frisbee players and Irish step dancers prancing in unison on the back of a truck.

It was a day for wearing enormous hats, silly wigs, shamrock antennae and emerald feather boas. Some families watching the parade were dressed entirely in green. Dominique Warren, 9, was disguised as a leprechaun, with a bright orange beard and a yellow meerschaum pipe.

"Where does a leprechaun live?" asked his mother, Antoinette McNeely, a Northeast Washington resident and photo technician who said she takes her son to every parade, museum and cultural exhibition she can find.

"In the rainbow," Dominique answered promptly.

"What does he protect there?"

Dominique pondered, then brightened.

"A pot of gold!" he said. His mother beamed.

Elsewhere along the rope line, questions about St. Patrick provoked numerous debates about whether the story that he drove all the snakes out of Ireland was fact or myth. Many people knew little else about the fifth-century missionary who became Ireland's patron saint, but several people in the crowd said they had visited Ireland and fallen in love.

"It's like taking a walk back in time, something almost primal," said Debbie Keane, an emergency room nurse from Severna Park, whose two small daughters were waving shamrock wands as they watched the parade. "It's the friendliness of the people, the smell of burning turf. . . . " Keane broke off and sighed.

For others, the 37th annual parade was a chance to celebrate their common heritage. Michael McCaffrey of Williamsburg and his brother Patrick of Stafford County said they meet in Washington every St. Patrick's Day and take their kids to the parade. They also looked up their family history in the National Archives and once went on a pilgrimage to their native Fermana County, in Northern Ireland.

"The Irish have always been humble and happy-go-lucky. It's nice for the Irish diaspora to be able to go back to their roots," said Patrick, a civilian who works at the Pentagon.

"We say 'Happy St. Patrick's Day,' but we are very American and integrated into American society," added Michael, who works for NASA.

Both a nostalgic taste of Ireland and the contributions of Irish Americans were on display yesterday. One float featured a replica of a whitewashed Irish cottage with a real thatched roof. Several century-old hose-and-ladder trucks represented the tradition of Irish American service with fire departments across the country.

Members of the McCarthy and Reagan clans and several chapters of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, an Irish Catholic fraternal organization, sent contingents. A fife and drum corps paraded in Revolutionary-era uniforms, wigs and three-cornered hats. Irish wolfhounds, greyhounds and terriers paced beside their trainers.

Some of the most attentive parade watchers were visitors or immigrants from other parts of the world, including an Indian business consultant from Montana and a Cambodian refugee family from Maryland. One group of women, all dressed in bright pink, intermittently shouted slogans against the war in Iraq.

"We are here today to say that war is definitely not green," said Liz Hourican, 40, a peace activist from Arizona. Then her group began chanting, "Wishing on a four-leaf clover, Bush bring home all our soldiers."

Phalanxes of uniformed musicians marched in step, performing martial and show tunes as they passed under an enormous American flag hung from two firetruck cranes. Whenever they paused, a lone trumpeter on the sidewalk could be heard, picking out a thoughtful soliloquy. Then the next blast of music struck up, and the trumpeter's mournful notes were lost in the din.