Celebrate St Patrick’s Day in style with ‘the best Irish celebration outside the Emerald Isle’

Ten days of Irish revelry will descend on Manchester from March 8-17, shining a light on the awesome Irish community and flooding the city with live music and dancing – including the best St Patrick’s Day celebrations outside of the Emerald Isle.

The Manchester Irish Festival

The Manchester Irish Festival is Europe’s biggest Irish festival, hosting 200 events across the city including a lively pop-up Irish Festival Village and the legendary Irish Parade with more than 30 floats from stunning and colourful Irish dancers and bands, through to a 12-hour St Patrick’s Day party.

With so many activities and events available, here are the top 10 that you won’t want to miss this year.

Manchester’s top events for The Manchester Irish Festival

The Irish Parade

The Irish World Heritage Centre will once again provide the starting point for this year’s Irish Parade, 10th March from 12pm.

2024 will see the parade return to its full glory, with incredible floats featuring hundreds of people joining together to showcase the culture, heritage, sounds and joy of the Manchester Irish community.

Local organisations and communities will be flying their county flags throughout the parade, and Manchester’s vast array of Irish dance teams will dazzle spectators with glittering costumes, as marching bands bring the sounds of the Emerald Isle to the streets of Manchester.

The route will see the parade, sponsored by local Irish construction group Blue Central, travel along Cheetham Hill Road, to the AO Arena, passing Manchester Fort, before turning around, and heading back to the Irish World Heritage Centre. The parade route is 2.5 miles long, and will last approximately two hours.

A Mancunian Irish iconography art trail by Mark Kennedy

The Irish Nation, a collection of Irish iconography by renowned mosaic artist Mark Kennedy including works featuring George Best, Oscar Wilde, Sinead O’Connor and Shane McGowan, will be exhibited in cultural and creative venues throughout Manchester City Centre from 1st-31st March 2024.

Commissioned by Irish Mancunian, an organisation that curates cultural events of Irish interest for Manchester audiences, The Irish Nation has been transformed into a free-to-view art trail with the support of global art producer, Wild in Art (Bee in the City, Gratitude), with each piece placed in a venue carefully selected to provide context to the piece.

Ten years in the making, the project began in 2015, when Mark Kennedy spontaneously created a piece of Samuel Beckett, a piece of work that awakened something within him, reaffirming his deep Irish roots. The stunning collection of original and previously unseen mosaics now portrays seventeen personalities from the worlds of literature, music, sport and history.

Singer Luke Kelly will be found at Hallé St Peter’s, Manchester United legend George Best at the National Football Museum, music icons Sinead O’Connor and Shane MacGowan at New Century, poet, playwright and wit Oscar Wilde at QueerLit, playwright Samuel Beckett at 53Two, and. John F. Kennedy at the Science and Industry Museum in a nod to the part he played in the moon landings

Sitting alongside the exhibition will be QR codes to take you straight to the website to learn more about the fascinating stories behind the art. Ground-breaking architect and furniture designer Eileen Gray, whose mosaic can be seen at Manchester Craft and Design Centre, was overlooked for a long time, as she worked in the male dominated Modernist movement, and boxing phenomenon Katie Taylor, whose portrait can be found at Koffee Pot, broke through the barriers to entry in boxing that meant she had start her career boxing as a boy and is now double World Champion.

From 1st-31st March 2024 in venues throughout Manchester City Centre

You can find out more by clicking here

The Manchester Irish Festival village

All roads lead to the Irish Festival Village! The vibrant destination pop-up venue on St Ann’s Square in the centre of town is set to be the hottest place to raise a pint of the black stuff this March.

Expect the best of Irish live music, a huge screen showing Ireland’s Six Nations games, Manchester’s creamiest pint of Guinness and mouth-watering Irish-themed food. The Irish Festival Village launches on the 8th of March and will run right up to St Patrick’s Day.

Ceili-Cise

This Ceili-Cise dancing class for adults promises a fun and friendly atmosphere for beginners.

Based in Levenshulme’s Klondyke, anyone can join this event which will take place from 5:30pm on 11th March. Get ready to feel the rhythm and get moving!

1 Burnage Range, Manchester M19 2HQ

St Patrick’s Day at O’Sheas

One of Manchester’s very best Irish bars is back with its huge day of shenanigans for St Patrick’s Day.

If you haven’t been to O’Sheas, it needs to be on your to-do list.

Entry during the day is free with their famous Irish Breakfast served from 10 am and the very best of live music throughout the day from Lochin, Joe Keegan & Green Hot Clover.

80 Princess St, Manchester M1 6NF

Damien Dempsey

After a triumphant run of sold-out Summer dates across Ireland last year, Irish sensation, Damien Dempsey has announced a tour for March 2024 with dates in England and Scotland including performing at the Manchester Club Academy on Saturday 9th March.

You can get tickets by clicking here

John McSherry Trio performance

John McSherry was hailed as a ‘true master’ of music according to Irish Music Magazine.

In spring this year, he will launch ‘Féile’, the live debut album of the John McSherry Trio. Watch them perform on 17th March, at 8 pm at Band on the Wall.

You can get tickets by clicking here

Palace Nightclub Reunion Quiz

This event is a reunion for the Palace nightclub in Levenshulme which opened in 1989. The Irish Club hosted some of the biggest names in Irish Entertainment, and this quiz night will be hosted in Hennigan’s Sports Bar, which is just a stone’s throw away from the original nightclub. This will take place from 7 pm on 12th March.

Check out their facebook by clicking here

Irish National Studies Conference

Attend talks from social historians and more, providing a space to learn and network. Centred at the Irish World Heritage Centre from 9 am, this day exploring identity will be accompanied by Irish music from the McGuire family.

You can find out more by clicking here

Limerick Competition

A limerick competition is a fun event to get the whole family involved in.

On the 13th of March, the Bowling Green in Chorlton will be hosting this competition, so brush up on some Edward Lear and give it a go.

You can find out more by clicking here

St Patricks Day at Rustik West Didsbury

Venture outside of the City Centre to West Didsbury and you’ll come across Rusitk, the only place to be around St Patrick’s Day if you’re on Burton Road. Two weeks of non-stop live music, the Cheltenham festival races, mouth-watering food and creamy pints of Guinness. Events happening from the 12th – 17th March.

You can find out more by clicking here

You can find out more about the festival by clicking here