South Side Irish Parade to resume this year, with founding families carrying on tradition
CHICAGO (CBS) -- This weekend, hundreds of revelers will head to the South Side to celebrate the saint who legend says stood on a hillside and banished all the snakes from Ireland.
As CBS 2's Jackie Kostek reported, Western Avenue between 103rd and 115th streets in Beverly and Morgan Park was calm and quiet, for the most part, on Friday night.
But on Sunday morning, the South Side Irish parade will look to make its triumphant return after a two-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Signs up and down Western Avenue read, "Tradition marches on." And on Sunday, march on they will.
"Once, I told my friends that I got on a float one year," said Caitlin Coakley, 7. "They said, 'Oh my gosh, you're like a celebrity.'"
Caitlin and her brother George – along Mary and her brother Patrick – are the wee, wee folks who just so happen to be the heirs and heiresses of the South Side Irish Parade.
George and Mary's mother was an inaugural marcher in the South Side Irish Parade, 43 years ago.
"She was in the first parade," said Mary, 6. "She was only 3."
"I felt like a superstar when I heard that," said George, 9. "I never even knew that."
The four grandkids are the beneficiaries of a rich, South Side tradition – started by Pat Coakley and George Hendry, two longtime neighbors and friends back in 1979.
"My wonderful husband, George Hendry, when he was a little boy, marched in the 79th Street Irish Parade – which eventually went downtown under the auspices of the first Mayor Daley," said Mary Hendry, George and Mary's grandmother.
Mr. Coakley and Mr. Hendry felt their kids were missing out, so they brought some neighbors together and got to marching.
"Raining like crazy, but that's the day the parade went off. We had a float," said Mr. Coakley's wife and Mary and Patrick's grandmother, Marianne Coakley. "It was Jack Gentry's baby buggy, and it had a cardboard box on it, and the kids drew on it."
"Afterwards, to celebrate, they came to our garage, and we gave them Twinkies and Kool-Aid – so that was the first after party," added Ms. Hendry.
The South Side Irish Parade has grown significantly larger 43 years later – moving from neighborhood streets to Western Avenue, and going from about 17 kids to at times an estimated 200,000 people. The after-parties have gotten better too.
"Good corned beef and we drink a lot of pop," said Patrick Coakley, 13.
Much of that corned beef comes from County Fair Foods, which sells the good stuff in bulk.
"During this week and a half, we sell about 10 tons – which is about 20,000 pounds of corned beef," said Tom Baffes, President of County Fair Foods.
Even while the big production of the parade took a pause during the pandemic, the founding families still marched – just themselves, like the old days. But this year, they'll once again take it all in from the top of a float – their family tradition.
"Any time, any year, I've rounded the bend at 103rd and Western and I look to east and I look to west and go, 'Wow, I cannot believe this," said Marianne Coakley.
For full details about the South Side Irish Parade on Sunday, follow this link for their website. For details on the downtown St. Patrick's Day Parade on Saturday, follow this link.