For the first time in decades, the annual St. Patrick's parade in Montreal won't be on Ste. Catherine St. this year.
The project to refurbish Ste. Catherine St. got underway earlier this year, between Mansfield and Bleury Sts. — right at the end of the traditional parade route.
Parade organizers have announced a new route for this year's 195th edition of the parade, as well as a new direction — it will now run from east to west, instead of west to east.
It will begin at the corner of De Maisonneuve Blvd. and Bleury St., and run west along De Maisonneuve before turning off on Mackay St., where it will continue south to its end point at the corner of Mackay and Rene-Levesque Blvd.
Ken Quinn, past president and main historian of the United Irish Societies, says they started considering alternate parade routes since the city announced plans to go ahead with the Ste. Catherine St. rebuild.
"We had many ideas — Sherbrooke St., Rene-Levesque," Quinn says. "Sherbrooke St. wasn't available to us, it's a major thoroughfare, it's a provincial route...the city really wasn't keen on letting us use Sherbrooke St., even though that would have been our best option. Rene-Levesque isn't a great route for a winter-spring parade. It's an absolutely fabulous route to take for summer parades, but it's really windy on Rene-Levesque, and it's not a pleasant place for people to be standing at that time of year."
That left organizers to consider De Maisonneuve Blvd.
"We thought it would be a pretty good route to take," he says. "We're going to put on a pretty good parade on De Maisonneuve."
Quinn says organizers fully intend to return to Ste. Catherine St. once the construction is done.
This year's parade kicks off at noon on Sunday, March 18.