Irish--and Other--Eyes Smile From Coast to Coast on St. Patrick’s Day

Mixing religious reverence with raucous excess, thousands packed the grassy squares of Savannah on Saturday and joined the nation in a St. Patrick’s Day celebration of all things green.

Worshipers packed the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist for morning Mass--about the same time bars opened their doors for those breakfasting on Bloody Marys and beer, and perhaps a side of green grits to coat the stomach.

Savannah’s St. Patrick’s Day parade, the nation’s second-largest, is a 177-year-old tradition. The party begins before sunrise and lasts into the wee hours.

Lee Eason covered his entire face and bald head in green greasepaint with an airbrushed white shamrock on top. “I’ve been here since 7 o’clock this morning, and I hadn’t been to bed yet,” the Savannah trucker shouted over the cheering crowd and brass-band blare of the parade.

The scene played out all over the country--different in each city but green everywhere.

At the nation’s biggest parade, in New York, it was a mayor’s last St. Patrick’s Day parade and a cardinal’s first, when more than 1 million spectators watched 165,000 pairs of feet march up Fifth Avenue.

For Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, it was a farewell love fest in green. “Rudy! Rudy! We love you, baby,” yelled one group of fans minutes after the mayor greeted newly minted Cardinal Edward Egan in front of St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton attended Mass at St. Patrick’s, but then skipped the Fifth Avenue parade and headed upstate to parades in Syracuse and Albany. Unlike the New York City parade, which bans homosexuals, the processions in those cities do not exclude anyone.

“I think parades that honor Irish heritage and culture and bring people together should be inclusionary, not exclusionary,” Clinton said in Syracuse.

In Chicago, cold temperatures and a change of venue didn’t deter thousands of spectators from watching a parade that featured 2,000 Irish dancers, about 60 floats, 26 bands and one enormous helium leprechaun.

A plumbers’ union dyed the Chicago River green.