W. Hudson St. Patrick's Day march is Monday 03/08/01 By Rose Duger Journal correspondent A century ago, the West Hudson area's three towns were bursting with immigrants from Ireland and Scotland who emigrated to find work in the factories and knitting mills that had sprung up in Kearny, Harrison and East Newark. The Celtic influence has waned somewhat over the years, with many descendants of those first immigrants moving farther into the suburbs. But once a year, West Hudson is paved with green again, as the annual St. Patrick's Day parade proceeds along Frank Rodgers Boulevard and Kearny Avenue. This year, the marchers step off on Monday at 2 p.m. in Harrison, and the parade proceeds along Frank Rodgers Boulevard in Harrison and East Newark, and Kearny Avenue in Kearny. Harrison Mayor Raymond J. McDonough is grand marshal, and Kearny resident Una McKeon is the deputy grand marshal. An Irish Mass at Harrison's Holy Cross Church at noon will precede the parade. The Irish flag will also be raised at various times in the morning at Town Hall and Monsignor Joseph Carroll Park in Kearny, and at Holy Cross Church in Harrison. This year marks the parade's 30th official anniversary. But longtime members of the Irish community say the event really started nearly 50 years ago, when members of West Hudson's Irish organizations marched along local streets to board buses bound for Newark's celebrated St. Patrick's Day Parade. "The 'urban legend' around here is that the parade was initially started in the 1950s by the Irish American Club" in Kearny, said Kevin Quinn, president of the United Irish Association of West Hudson, an umbrella group encompassing nine organizations that run the annual parade. "It was an unorganized march to participate in the Newark parade." Records don't exist from those early marches, but Kearny's Thomas McKeon recalled that about 200 people would gather for the trek. "The Brian Boru pipe band would lead the march, with everyone in top hat and tails," said McKeon, who was the grand marshal of the 1972 parade. "Somewhere along the way, the Cifelli Association from Harrison would join up." The first organized parade in 1971 was held only in Kearny, with a $200 budget, McKeon said. In comparison, today's parade costs about $10,000 to stage. Harrison held its own parade until 1981, when the three towns joined forces to stage an event that would make St. Patrick himself proud. This year's line of march includes many mainstays from those first parades, including the Cifelli Association in their signature top hats and tails, the award-winning St. Columcille Gaelic Pipe Band of Kearny, the East Newark Volunteer Fire Department, and the Kearny Fire Department Band. This year, the parade will include three other pipe bands, as well as drum and bugle corps and local school bands. The organizers stress that the marchers today represent the many ethnic groups that now comprise West Hudson. "It's a very diverse group of people that participate," said Joe Reese, secretary of the United Irish Association. "We don't look at it as an Irish parade. It's a community parade, and we're very proud of that." © 2001 The Jersey Journal.