Thousands of Irish and non-Irish eyes had plenty to smile o’bout Saturday when blue skies and warm temperatures beckoned them out early to watch this year’s 47th annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade in lower downtown Denver.
Outfitted in green boa feathers, green beads and green glittery shamrocks pasted to her face, Mary Sullivan and her niece Kimberly Sullivan from Bennett joined girlfriends wearing green hula skirts and shamrock-shaped sunglasses as they toasted one another with Murphy’s Irish Stout before the parade kicked off.
“This is the only day you’ll drag me out of bed early,” Mary Sullivan said. The women also paid tribute to their late friend Jeff Luginbuel, a longtime St. Patrick’s Day committee member and parade organizer who died last year.
“He lived for this day,” Nicole Rocket noted.
This year’s parade theme was “Irish With Altitude” and there was plenty of that combined with fierce Irish pride as Irish step dancers, Irish bagpipers, past and present Irish queens and floats bedecked with anything green wound their way along the parade route that started at 20th and Blake streets and ended at a Coors Field parking lot.
Denver City Auditor Dennis Gallagher was named the 2009 parade grand marshal.
“I’m honored they asked me,” said Gallagher, whose paternal and maternal grandparents were born on the Emerald Isle and migrated to this country. His great-grandfather once worked at the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company in Pueblo.
“This country has been good to us, and in these tough economic times let’s help each other out. I think that’s what St. Patrick would have wanted,” Gallagher said.
Gallagher was joined at the parade by Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrisey and U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo.
But the city dignitaries didn’t quite make an impression on young parade-goers as the dozens of uniformed Storm Troopers, Darth Vader and other characters from “Star Wars” did while marching.
“Whoa, this is really cool,” said Collin Clarry, 12, of Littleton who cheerfully wore green beads and ate candy given to him by parade participants.
Some St. Patrick parade watchers were so serious about celebrating the day, they arrived early in rented recreational vehicles and staked out a spot along the parade route.
With ice coolers filled with a variety of beers and tables laden with food, four generations of the Kelly family of Denver enjoyed a tailgate party.
“We have a history of being put down, but today everyone wants to be Irish,” Chris Kelly said.
Annette Espinoza: 303-954-1655 or aespinoza@denverpost.com
