St Patrick’s Day S.O.S.
A good vantage point for the Portlaoise St. Patrick's Day parade. Picture: Alf Harvey.
AN emergency meeting has been called in O’Loughlin’s Hotel, Portlaoise, this Thursday, January 10, to try and save the town’s St Patrick’s Day parade.
The present committee have organised the parade successfully for the past seven years, but due to dwindling numbers they now do not have sufficient members to successfully run this year’s parade and may have to disband altogether. A number of meetings were called late in 2012 but poor attendances meant that very little arrangements have been made and fundraising time is running out with just over ten weeks to go.
Chairman Ger Whelan has called the emergency meeting this Thursday at 8pm and PRO Jack Nolan explained that unless new members come forward, the parade will not take place.
“Unfortunately we need new people to come on the committee or Portlaoise will not have a parade this year. We have had a great group of up to 20 people involved over the last seven years and they have done a wonderful job but unfortunately we are now down to just a handful for various genuine reasons and that is not sufficient to organise an event of this size,” he said.
“It would be unfortunate if in this, the year of The Gathering, we did not have a parade,” he continued, “but that is down to this Thursday night and the response that we get from the community in Portlaoise. Anyone or any club or group that has anything to offer should come along to the meeting.”
The theme for this year is ‘Fairy Tales and Fables’ and everyone is invited along to the meeting this Thursday night.
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Weather for Portlaoise
Sunday 26 May 2013
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: 9 C to 15 C
Wind Speed: 22 mph
Wind direction: South west
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Heavy rain
Temperature: 5 C to 13 C
Wind Speed: 18 mph
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