Syracuse St. Patrick's Day Parade set to go ahead next year

The Syracuse St. Patrick's Day Parade is set to return in March 2022 after two years of successive cancelations due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The parade will be the 40th anniversary of the Syracuse St. Patrick's Day Parade and will take place on March 12, 2022, organizers have confirmed. 

The "Dance through Downtown" parade will feature hundreds of Irish step dancers dancing down Salina Street, while the parade will also celebrate Irish-American culture in Syracuse. 

Grand Marshals Sean Kirst and John Francis McCarthy will be marching in next year's parade to help celebrate and honor the city's Irish-American heritage. 

Kirst, a former reporter and columnist with the Post Standard and syracuse.com, said that he is "thrilled" to be marching in next year's parade and invited any Irish-American from Syracuse to march with him. 

"If I'm walking in the parade I am hoping that every single man woman and child that I ever wrote about in central New York would walk with me. I'd be thrilled to see them there, I'd extend that invitation," Kirst said on Wednesday. 

John Tumino, who founded the homeless outreach non-profit "In My Father's Kitchen", will also be marching in next year's parade as Gael of the Year. 

Tumino said that it would be a great honor to march alongside Kirst and John Francis McCarthy in the parade next year. 

"I'm believing that I have this wonderful honor to be with these two gentlemen walking Salina street in the parade and that we're gonna pull it off this year," he said at a press conference announcing the parade on Wednesday.