Hilton Head ready to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with festival, parade this weekend

HILTON HEAD ISLAND, S.C. (WTOC) - Hilton Head’s St. Patrick’s Day festivities are ready to go this weekend as the town will host its festival Saturday and a parade on Sunday.

“We have over 110 entries.”

It’ll be one of the biggest parades Hilton Head has ever seen, with plenty of music on hand.

“We have the Army, the Navy, the Marine corps, border patrol,” HHI St. Patrick’s Committee Media Coordinator Lynne Hummell said.

Plus high school bands and more. There’s a lot on the way, needing a bunch of space to set up.

“Staging includes all of this and the parking lot the public beach parking lot,” HHI St. Patrick’s Committee Chair Gabrielle Muething said.

One of the bands you’ll see is the Boston Police Gaelic Column of Pipes and Drums.

“We play mostly Irish music and we make our settings such that it kind of coincides with if you were singing the tunes,” said Paul Boyle, who is with the band.

They’re still unpacking all the instruments, so you’ll have to wait to hear them, but their first performance is set for Saturday’s Irish festival. It’s their 7th year here, saying they had to come back.

“The parade is huge. The people are enormously friendly.”

The organizers say there’s one more thing working in their favor.

“And Mother Nature has already cleaned all the pollen away.”

If you’re coming out to the island for that parade on Sunday, it’s going to kick off from Lowcountry Celebration Park starting at 3 p.m. Secondly, Pope Avenue, it’s the main drag of the parade and it’s going to closed down at 2 p.m., so no traffic through after that point.

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