Earlier this year, Irish-American leaders warned the annual St Patrick’s Day parade could be the last in San Antonio due to rising costs and a lack of support from City Hall. Though in its 41st year, the popular parade did not benefit from the funding or support afforded other annual events in the city calendar, leaving Harp and Shamrock stalwarts with a hefty annual bill for policing and coordinating the event.
But after a meeting last week between Harp and Shamrock representatives Joan Moody and Terry Peak and city authorities, a truce of sorts has been agreed.
The city will now kick in $3,000 towards the cost of barricades for the parade and provide some police free of charge, says Harp and Shamrock President Moody.
“Due to difficulties with the city budget, the city representatives said there was little chance of the parade being added to the list of annual events but that could be a possibility from 2012,” she added.
“We didn’t get everything we wanted, but it was a useful meeting and allowed us to detail the contribution of the Irish to San Antonio since the 1760s to the present,” Moody said. “I feel that we made an impression on people who hadn’t really given due consideration to the parade previously, especially when we pointed out that every San Antonio resident of a certain age who attended Catholic school up to the mid-70s was educated by Irish nuns.”
In June, the Harp and Shamrock Society joined the Irish Echo to host the Irish American Leaders Awards in Alamo City’s historic Menger Hotel.