St Patrick's Day

St Patrick's Day has always been the day for the Irish in Australia. On 17 March 1795 there were rowdy festivities among the Irish convicts, and the cells were filled with prisoners. Later the occasion gained in respectability, marked by formal dinners attended by the colonial elite, many with no Irish connections.

By the early 20th century, parades were held in capital cities and rural centres. These were demonstrations of connections with an Irish Catholic past, or support for Irish political causes.

Today, St Patrick's Day in Australia has evolved into a fun day marked by revelry, green beer and comical hats. On that day, some say, there are only two kinds of people — those who are Irish, and those who wish they were.

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Black and white image showing hundreds of people lining a street to watch a procession featuring mounted soldiers and an open-topped vehicle.

Archbishop Daniel Mannix in the St Patrick's Day procession led by 13 mounted Victorian Cross recipients in Melbourne in 1920. National Library of Australia.

St Patrick's Day parades in Melbourne under Archbishop Daniel Mannix were assertive political statements of Catholic loyalty to Australia during the war and support for the cause of Irish independence. For as long as Mannix was alive, the Melbourne parade continued, but it ceased altogether in 1970.

St Patrick's Day, Melbourne, late 1930s–1940s

Black and white image showing a large square banner featuring a central image of St Patrick. There is an Australian flag in the top left corner of the banner, which is being towed by five horses, down a street which is lined on both sides with people.

St Patrick's Day parade banner, Melbourne, late 1930s–40s. Melbourne Diocesan Historical Commission, Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne.

Huge banners, featuring an imaginary St Patrick in ancient Ireland, were once a feature of St Patrick's Day marches in Australian capital cities. In the early 1920s an Australian flag was added to the banners in Melbourne to show that Australians of Irish Catholic descent were loyal to Australia.

St Patrick's Day, Melbourne, about 1960

Black and white image showing band members walking down a street, wearing kilts and playing pipes. A truck with a large banner of St Patrick on it follows in the rear and people line either side of the street.

The Irish National Pipe band in the Melbourne St Patrick's Day parade in 1960 or earlier, featuring Irish drum major Seamus Daly, pipe major Joe McSpirrit, pipers Mick Cummins, Pat Ryan, and Jim Daly and marshals Paddy Power (left) and Harry Murray. Courtesy Geraldine Ryan.

St Patrick's Day badge, 1920s

Fabric and sequin St Patrick's Day badge, 1920s. Handmade by Katie Green, a student of Loreto College, Marryatville, South Australia. Photo: National Museum of Australia.