Pearse Kerr, waving to the crowd.
Pearse Kerr rode down High Street, perched on the back seat of a bright blue convertible, his wife Liz at his side. He wore sunglasses to shield his eyes from the glare of the afternoon—a balmy day in the low 60s. He also wore the tricolor sash of the Burlington County St. Patrick’s Day Parade grand marshal. It looked good on him.
That was the happy start to the region’s first St. Patrick’s Day parade. Like most parades of the type, it was filled, beginning to end, with perky Irish dancers and serious-looking pipers, hordes of Hibernians, and local paddy rock bands playing on flatbed floats. There were precious few missteps, with the exception of the Guinness man—some dude wearing a kind of soft-sculpture pint glass—who held up the parade for blocks (just like every year), as practically everyone ran into High Street to have their picture taken with him. At one point, a Mount Holly patrolman stepped forward to hurry him along. (“I warned him about this last year,” he grumbled.)
The crowd was three deep in some places, with folks wearing cardboard Irish top hats and green plastic shamrock beads.
All told, another grand day. We have the pictures. Check out the slideshow (above), or the photo essay here.
