End of the Road for Only St. Patrick’s Day Parade in O.C. : Tradition: The Mission Viejo event began over a bar bet in 1969. It grew too large and costly for the small volunteer group to stage.

Irish eyes won’t be smiling next month with the news that Orange County’s only St. Patrick’s Day parade is being canceled after 25 years.

Parade organizers said the event had grown too large and expensive for their small volunteer group to stage. Also, attendance--averaging about 5,000 people--has been disappointing in recent years, they said.

Still, “this is a bitter pill for us to swallow,” said W.W. (Tex) Shannon, a past president of the Mission Viejo Activities Committee. “We agonized over this decision.”

The cancellation of the parade leaves an annual festival in Midway City as the only major St. Patrick’s Day celebration in the county. Shannon said the committee hopes to bring the parade back next year.

“We’re leaving the door open,” he said. “It could happen.”

There was always an oddity to the Mission Viejo parade, held annually in a city without a distinct Irish presence. It began in 1969 when two friends in a bar bet they could get at least 100 people to show up for a parade. Twenty-five years later, their wager had grown into a large-scale community event that drew 111 parade entries, featuring floats, marching bands and strolling clowns.

Although the parade’s recent turnouts were considered disappointing for a city of 82,000, regrets over the parade’s passing were expressed by Irish and non-Irish county residents alike.

“I know I’m going to miss it,” Jim Flaherty said over a beer at Hennessey’s Tavern in Laguna Beach on Friday. “I never could figure out the Mission Viejo-Ireland connection, but who cares? There are few enough St. Patrick’s Day things to do around here for a good Irishman.”

As the parade grew over the years, so did Mission Viejo. The small, close-knit community of 25 years ago is now South County’s largest city.

“I think it started as a good excuse to have a parade and get people together,” said Charlie Ware, who helped run the parade for six years during its 1980s heyday, when more than 10,000 people would show up. “But Mission Viejo was a small town then, and it’s certainly grown. Maybe it’s time for something fresh and different.”

Organizers said they will put on an alternate event this spring, probably an open-air festival that they hope will involve fewer hassles.

A larger, more urban Mission Viejo has made it difficult to close down the parade route along Marguerite Parkway for several hours. Increased traffic has meant an increase in the parade’s major expense, hiring Orange County sheriff’s deputies to provide security and traffic management.

Raising money has also grown more difficult. Last year, the Mission Viejo Activities Committee met only $8,000 of its $20,000 fund-raising goal.

And the last straw: The county bankruptcy crisis forced the city to hedge on its annual allocation to the parade.

“It also took hundreds of volunteer hours to run the parade,” Shannon said. “Unfortunately, most of that load fell on the shoulders of just a few people.”

Still, the activities committee “has serious regrets,” he said. “It wasn’t an easy decision. There is a true feeling of loss over this parade.”

City officials said they share the group’s disappointment.

Rick Howard, assistant to the city manager, said the parade probably would have received its $24,000 allocation from the city.

“The parade was a wonderful tradition for 25 years,” Howard said. “But sometimes you need to move on with life.”