Philadelphia celebrates St. Patrick’s Day this weekend

Philadelphia has begun its St. Patrick Day. celebrations, with lots of bar crawls to choose from on Saturday leading to the big parade on Sunday.

“We are hanging out and seeing where the day takes us,” Joey McCool, 27, said. “And the shirt I’m wearing today my grandmother got this for my grandfather in the 70s back in Ireland.”

And Grandma would be so proud.

WHYY’s Ella Lathan joined the celebrations and went to Barstool at noon to see what all the fuss was about.

Although bar crawlers may be having a fun day, service industry workers endure a lot especially during a holiday. Barstool workers expected a big crowd throughout the day on Saturday.

Annual bar crawlers may know that there are many bar crawls to choose from this weekend and next, but newcomers may not.

Erin Express has a history of bar crawls for St. Paddy’s Day but they are not the only crawl in the city. So far there seem to be two others just this weekend:

• 2023 St. Patrick’s Bar Crawl
• The Shamrock Crawl

The crawls range in price as well as start and end time. The Shamrock Crawl starts early and has five different locations where a crawler can pick up their wristband. The crawl offers general admissions tickets, bundles for groups, and VIP packages.

There are more bar crawls next weekend as well.

On Sunday the St. Patrick’s Day Parade starts at 11 a.m. at 16th Street and JFK Boulevard. The parade showcases Irish dancers, and over 200 cultural groups celebrating Irish culture.

“Let There Be Peace,” this year’s theme, is centered around the idea of tranquility and harmony.

The parade’s main stage is located at Market and 5th streets, and the activities will start to wind down at 3 p.m. closer to 6th Street. Road closures can be expected along the parade route from 5:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.