Everybody’s Irish on St. Patrick’s Day, a national holiday for parades, pints, and poor decisions. And, if you buy the party line, it’s a celebration of Irish heritage.
The day is shaping up as a familiar global mashup of Irish pride, big-city parades and green-lit landmarks — along with the annual reminder that the holiday can turn deadly given the level of drunken debauchery.
In Ireland, Dublin’s St. Patrick’s Festival is scheduled for March 14-17, with organizers branding the 2026 theme as “Roots,” a focus on heritage, identity and belonging. The festival’s marquee parade on March 17 typically draws massive crowds; Irish media reports this year’s event is expected to attract about 500,000 spectators.
Internationally, Tourism Ireland’s “Global Greening” campaign again plans to light up landmarks in green as part of its “World Goes Green” push. Recent campaign materials cite sites such as Niagara Falls, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and the Empire State Building as landmarks that have participated.
In the U.S., WalletHub’s 2026 rankings of the best cities for St. Patrick’s Day placed Boston first, followed by Reno, Nevada; Savannah, Georgia; Overland Park, Kansas; and Henderson, Nevada, based on metrics including Irish pubs and restaurants per capita, hotel costs, and forecast weather.
Major parade and spectacle traditions remain the backbone of the holiday in big cities — from Boston and New York to Chicago’s long-running river dyeing. Chicago’s first Irish parade dates to the 1840s, and the river dyeing tradition began in the 1960s.
“St. Pat’s is like our Super Bowl,” Sean Reilly, owner of Sean’s Bar and Kitchen near Times Square, told the New York Post. “By 8 a.m., the bars start filling up. You really have to be able to handle the heat.”
Safety officials, meanwhile, continue to use the holiday to warn about impaired driving.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports that in 2023, 12,429 people died in alcohol-impaired-driving crashes nationwide. NHTSA and related safety campaigns routinely flag St. Patrick’s Day as a high-risk period for drunk driving, urging people to plan ahead for a sober ride.
This year, amid recent terrorist attacks in the country and military action in Iran, security concerns will be heightened nationwide. In Chicago, officials said they will conduct citywide deployments over St. Patrick’s Day Weekend to ensure public safety and security.
“Similar to previous years, the Chicago Police Department will have an increased police presence at all St. Patrick’s Day events across the city, including at the Chicago River Dyeing, the downtown St. Patrick’s Day Parade, the Northwest Side Irish Parade and the South Side Irish Parade,” the agency said in a release. “CPD has also been working with fellow City agencies and public safety partners to ensure sufficient resources are in place during these celebrations.”
