Twin brothers honor dad's Miller Place-Rocky Point parade legacy

Twin brothers Ray and John O’Sullivan marched through the streets of Miller Place at the head of the 68th annual Miller Place-Rocky Point St. Patrick’s Day Parade on Sunday, continuing a tradition started three generations earlier, when the family first immigrated to America.

The brothers, both 37, are members of The Friends of St. Patrick, a local Irish group started by their great-uncle, John M. Sullivan, and his business partner, George Falkner.

Sullivan, who owned Sullivan’s Tavern on the corner of Harrison Avenue and Route 25A in Miller Place, came to America from Kerry County, Ireland in 1949, and founded the first parade in 1951 as a way to celebrate his heritage.

Later, Ray and John’s father, James O’Sullivan, took up the responsibility for helping to organize the parade, and did so until he died last year of natural causes at the age of 79.

“He was proud of where he came from, and he never forgot where he came from. He wanted that tradition to carry on,” said Ray O’Sullivan. “It’s something that we bring from Ireland to Long Island.”

The brothers said that planning the annual event has been a family tradition for as long as they can remember.

“It’s bigger than Christmas. It was the biggest day in the whole household every year,” said Ray O’Sullivan. “We grew up with it. It’s been part of our lives for close to 40 years.”

In addition to being a way to keep the culture of their family’s homeland with them in the United States, the parade has also come to mean something even more for the thousands of attendees who pack the streets of Miller Place each year, the brothers said.

“The parade is a welcoming of spring,” said John O’Sullivan. “It means spring is coming.”