The ultimate St. Patrick's Day celebration is being forced to go virtual again.
For the second straight year, the coronavirus pandemic has forced organizers of the St. Patrick's Day Parade in Dublin, Ireland to resort to a virtual celebration, according to Travel+Leisure.
It's a blow to all who enjoy the festivities, but organizers say they intend to expand the celebration so the world can share it.
"While we cannot gather on the streets for the St. Patrick's Festival Parade this March 17, we are reimagining how we bring to life the heart and soul of the national parade," organizers said in a statement.
This time, the festival will run from March 12 through March 17 on a dedicated TV channel and website. The lineup will include performances by musicians, artists and marching bands. Dublin's parade is the largest in Ireland and typically draws crowds above 500,000, the BBC reports.
Belfast also has canceled its St. Patrick's Day parade for the second year in a row. Northern Ireland remains in lockdown through at least March 5. As for the largest parades - New York and Boston - the news also is not good.
Boston, which draws more than one million spectators, has canceled its parade for the second straight year.
New York, where more than two million people line the streets, is going to be scaled down at best or, at worst, canceled for the second consecutive year.
"We're being told...that at this point at least, and also by the governor and the mayor, that it's very unlikely we are going to have a full parade. All other parades are shut down," the parade's chairman Sean Lane said during a Zoom call with delegates last month. "We are hoping for better but we are preparing for the worst."
Reilly Dundon, the parade board member who liaises with the New York City Police Department, was blunt in his assessment of the 2021 Irish takeover of Fifth Avenue.
"Bottom line is that it's pretty grim in terms of the prospects of having a parade," he told delegates. "What I've gathered from speaking to everybody, the outlook at this point is frankly not good. I'm in regular touch with the NYPD. We will have to keep following up with the mayor's office to see what changes might come down."
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