Sons and daughters of Erin in New Ulm will celebrate their Irish heritage on Tuesday, March 17, with the 61st annual New Ulm St. Patrick’s Day Parade.

The parade, the oldest continuous St. Patrick’s Day celebration in Minnesota, will start at 5 p.m. at Third South and Minnesota Street and proceed the wrong way up Minnesota to the Glockenspiel, led by Grand Marshal Todd Olson and Irish Queen Kathy Jo Lux.

The parade will be held come rain, shine or blizzard. After the parade, the festivities will continue with the Gathering of the Clans at Herb’s Pub (aka The Kaiserhoff). Herb Knutson’s celebrated chefs will prepare a regal repast for the celebrants, while the O’Concord Singers will provide music guaranteed to bring tears to listener’s eyes.

The festivities will end at midnight, as always, when Mary O’Connor dances the Irish Jig on the Kaiserhoff bar.

(Editor’s Note: The information above is factual, for the most part. Readers are encouraged to read the rest of this article with a healthy dose of skepticism.)

The theme of the parade this year is “Love Your Neighbor (even if they are German).” The Irish hope this motto will encourage people to accept and celebrate their neighbors of all nationalities at a time when the federal government is bent on rousting out even the most beneficent of immigrants from the country, maybe even the Irish!

The Irish will be marching this year without fear despite reports that ICE agents may be lurking, searching for Irish immigrants or first-generation Irish descendants with a history of horse thieving, salmon poaching, poitìn making and rebellion in their ancestry.

“We have arranged for a large shipment of shillelaghs to be delivered in time for the parade, and the lads will be well equipped to handle the situation if ICE should try to interfere,” said Pat Kearney, chairman of the St. Patrick’s Day Committee.

It would be difficult for ICE agents to find the room to operate if they did try to strongarm some of the local Irish. New Ulm’s streets are always packed, virtually impassable on St. Patrick’s Day, due to the high number of visitors coming to see the spectacle.

The expansion of Highway 14 to four lanes coming in to New Ulm has helped reduce the traffic somewhat, but this year MnDOT is planning to designate all four lanes from Nicollet to New Ulm for inbound traffic on March 17 to ease the congestion. Those seeking to leave New Ulm for whatever reason on that day are advised to use Highways 15 or 68.

A full slate of activities is scheduled for the day. The annual 5K Irish Jig will start in Harman Park at noon, followed by the Rope Pushing Contest at Irish Park (known the rest of the year as German Park). The Irish are collaborating in a new event with the Brown County Humane Society, a Cat Herding Contest at the Brown County Fairgrounds.

The annual “Hermann the German Roll Out the Barrel Barrel Roll” will be held held at 3:30 p.m. at the Hermann Monument. Mayor Kathleen Juni will be sealed in a barrel and rolled down the Center Street Hill. She will hopefully recover in time for the parade.

The Irish have invited President Donald Trump to attend a special symposium. The New Ulm Irish have arranged for representatives of the Republic of Ireland and the government of Northern Ireland to hold a discussion on how to get along with your neighbors on the other side of your border.

To encourage the president to attend, the committee is prepared to present him with the inaugural Golden Shamrock Award, good for a year’s supply of Shamrock Shakes at any McDonalds restaurant in the D.C. area.

If the president is too busy to attend, the local Irish are hoping that he will send Secretary of State Marc O’Rubio.

U.S. Rep. Brad Finstad has been invited to discuss the benefits of Green (as in Irish) energy, if Trump will allow him.

The St. Patrick’s Day committee is awarding a pair of “Friends of the Irish” awards this year. One is being presented posthumously to Denis Warta, a friend to all in New Ulm, even the Irish. For many years Denny was the good-natured subject of many Bill O’Connor jokes, mostly about him playing center for the Germans during the traditional Irish vs. Germans basketball games.

The other is being presented to Don Brand, in recognition of his service to preserve the continuity of the St. Patrick’s Day parade one year when O’Connor was too ill to make the arrangements. Don noticed the lack of parade and organized it at the last minute.

The Irish wish to make notice of their contributions to the betterment of New Ulm. This year, when the New Ulm city government is contemplating the renovation of the base of the Hermann Monument, the Irish are proposing instead that the Hermann monument be replaced altogether with the statue of St. Patrick, which the Irish have been proposing for years. Plans have been finalized for years, with the only impediment being the unwillingness of the New Ulm City Council to approve a location for the statue.

Now that the state has allowed the sale of recreational marijuana, the Irish are proposing the recreational sale and consumption of shamrocks. When shredded and dried, shamrocks produce a much milder euphoric effect than marijuana, especially when smoked in clay pipes like the leprechauns use. In fact, smoking shamrocks often leads to seeing leprechauns.

The Irish also note that Dr. Karl Papierniak, long-time surgeon at New Ulm Medical Center is retiring this year. The Irish are planning to recruit an Irish surgeon from Dublin, a hernia transplant specialist, to replace him.

As always, the parade is open to all who wish to join in the celebration. The weather is expected to be good, with the heavenly triumvirate of Bill O’Connor, Pat Kneefe and Terry Dempsey handling the arrangements from on high.

— Kevin Sweeney is the former editor the New Ulm Journal