The 2014 New York City St. Patrick's Day Parade takes place on Monday March 17, 2014, with more than 150,000 marchers expected to make their way down the route on 5<sup>th Avenue in Manhattan.
The parade has a start time of 11 a.m. ET and can be watched on TV on NBC Channel 4. The St Patrick's Day parade can also be watched online through an NBC live stream via the link provided below.
Amazingly this will be the 253<sup>rd annual St Patrick's Day parade in the Big Apple, which makes it officially older than the United States of America. The first parade was reportedly started by a group of homesick Irish conscripts from the British Army way back in 1762.
More than 2 million are expected to attend the event this year, with a huge majority of them dressed in shamrocks and anything green to get in the festive mood.
The Grand Marshall of this year's event is Jack Ahern of the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 30.
Even though these days St Patrick's Day might be more associated with partying, anything green, shamrocks, and of course Guinness and alcohol, the parade in fact originates from a religious holiday that marks St Patrick bringing Christianity to Ireland in the 4<sup>th Century.
Even the tradition to wear shamrocks, and to dress in green stems from St Patrick himself, as he wore the shamrock and showed it off as a mark of the Holy Trinity as he taught about Jesus to the Irish.
What might surprise most people is that St Patrick was not in fact Irish, even though probably 99 percent of people joining the parade this year will believe so. St Patrick was in fact English, was born around 350 A.D. and lived much of his life in Wales.
St Patrick was said to have taken the religious system of Rome to Ireland, establishing the Christian Church in the country, preaching throughout the country for three decades. His actions angered Celtic druids in Ireland, and he was arrested numerous times for his proselytizing.
Another interesting fact is that St Patrick's Day was in fact a "dry holiday" in Ireland until about just 40 years ago. Typically until 1970, St Patrick's Day was marked as a holy holiday in Ireland and as such all pubs and bars were shut down for the day across the country to mark the holiday.
The New York City St Patrick's Day parade will start at 11 a.m. ET from 5<sup>th Avenue at 44<sup>th Street, and make its way down 5<sup>th Avenue to 79<sup>th Street, ending at approximately 4 p.m. ET.
The parade can be watched on NBC Channel 4, or online by clicking here.
