Shamrock Parade, festival bring touch of the Irish to Lexington
‘These events are what our country longs for now’
By Alec Harvey
There’s something you might not know about Bill Shanahan, who, with his wife Vicki, owns Shanahan Sports & Entertainment, which owns the Lexington County Blowfish Baseball Club.
He once was an Irish step dancer, and a pretty good one at that.
“I grew up in San Francisco in a very traditional Irish family, and my mom and dad had my two sisters and I take traditional Irish step dancing for a number of years,” he said. “I would perform in the Irish festivals and march in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade, and I’ve won some medals in my day.”
That love for all things Irish has followed him from city to city in a four-decade career in minor-league baseball.
“If the town where we had a baseball team didn’t have a St. Patrick’s Day Parade, we started one up,” Shanahan said.
And that’s exactly what happened in Lexington in 2016, when Shanahan created the Shamrock Parade, which takes place the week before St. Patrick’s Day. The 2024 parade down Lexington’s Main Street is set to begin at 2 p.m. on March 9.
“It’s everything you can think of that would be in a parade, from Irish dancing to the Ancient Order of Hibernians, carrying all the Irish flags, to a military presence from the South Carolina National Guard to local gymnastics centers,” he said. “You name it, we’ve got it.”
It all adds up to an afternoon of family-friendly fun that has become one of Lexington’s premier events.
“This is Americana,” Shanahan said. “These events are what our country longs for now, more things for the family. It has become a real festive day.”
In addition to the parade, the day includes the family-friendly Shamrock Festival, created by O’Hara’s Public House, a downtown Lexington staple.
“We developed a relationship with Bill Shanahan even before our doors opened,” said Matt O’Hara, director of operations and managing partner of O’Hara’s Public House, which is owned by O’Hara, his wife and two other couples. “We found we had a common desire to build and bring more options for family-friendly entertainment to downtown Lexington.”
For the first few years, the focal point of the parade – the judges’ grandstand and the public address announcers – were in front of Shanahan’s office at the intersection of Main Street and Church Street. After Shanahan moved his office to the Lexington County Baseball Stadium, though, parade central shifted to O’Hara’s location near the Icehouse Amphitheater.
“Everything happens now in front of the pub,” Shanahan said. “The big, congested area of people is there.”
They have plenty of room, because the Town of Lexington, a sponsor of the events, shuts down Main Street for the day.
“That only happens three times a year, for the Shamrock Parade, Veterans Day Parade and Christmas Parade,” O’Hara said. “We’re very much in the middle of all of it.”
In addition to being in the middle of the parade, O’Hara’s has grown its companion event, the Shamrock Festival, over the years. It began in 2019 with inflatables, face-painting and balloon animals. An expanded version was canceled in 2020 and 2021 because of COVID-19, but it returned last year.
“In 2024, I worked with the Town of Lexington to rent the pavilion less than a block away from our restaurant,” O’Hara said. “We had two high-end inflatables in there, more face-painting and balloon animals. It went on before and after the parade and was a huge hit.”
Expect more of the same this year before the parade, but about an hour after the parade is over, U2 cover band Rattle and Hum will play at a ticketed event at the amphitheater. The $20 cost for the ticket will go toward funding the free family-friendly activities, the tents and music the pub hosts in the week leading up to the Shamrock Festival and Shamrock Parade.
“We’ve experienced a tremendous growth in the last three or four years because there’s a real appetite for fun stuff downtown that you can bring the kids to,” O’Hara said.
The day of the festival and the parade, along with St. Patrick’s Day, are the two biggest days for O’Hara’s Public House.
“It brings the excitement right to our front door,” O’Hara said. “There are only a couple of days the whole year we don’t allow employees to request off, and that is one of them. It’s all-hands-on-deck for us.” O’Hara’s expands the day of the parade, erecting a 2,500-square-foot tent outside.
Shanahan emphasized the history of St. Patrick’s Day and why his event is called the Shamrock Parade. “Patrick was a Christian missionary who went to Ireland and shared the gospel with the pagans,” he said. “He used the shamrock, a three-leaf clover, to share about the holy trinity. It’s important to us that people understand what the shamrock stands for.”
And it’s also important that they enjoy themselves.
“We are just trying to make downtown a fun place for families to enjoy,” Shanahan said.
And who knows. You just might see him kicking up his heels – a little bit.
“I actually can still do a jig, a hornpipe and a reel,” Shanahan said, referring to three Irish dances. “Just no chance of winning any more medals.”
Shamrock Festival is set for March 9 with festival events before and after the Shamrock Parade.