St. Patrick's Day Parade marches for charities that combat hunger, grand marshal says

The Great Famine swept Ireland starting in 1845, killing 1 million Irish and helping drive twice as many to emigrate from the country — nearly three quarters to the United States.

Mindful of that history, organizers of Friday’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade are raising money this year for charities to combat food insecurity, defined by the U.S. Agriculture Department as “a household-level economic and social condition of limited or uncertain access to adequate food.”

The parade’s grand marshal, Kevin Conway of Manhasset, who’s helped raise over $1 million and counting, said addressing food insecurity is "an overly polite way of saying, ‘We’re gonna feed the hungry.’ ”

“Food insecurity is a cause that should resonate with the Irish, given the Great Famine in the middle 19th century was what caused the large part of the immigration that brought many Irish Americans here,” said Conway, 64, whose Irish roots in America date as far back as the 19th century.

He’s now vice chairman of the private-equity firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice.

Money raised will benefit Catholic Charities, City Harvest and Citymeals On Wheels, he said.

The parade — which kicks off at 11 a.m., starting at Fifth Avenue at East 44th Street and ending at East 79th Street — is considered the world’s oldest and largest St. Patrick’s Day Parade. It dates back to March 17, 1762.

The parade has been held nearly every year since 1762, although it was canceled near the peak of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, held virtually in 2021 and returned in person last year.

The parade is a tribute to St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland.

On Friday, among those to be prominently featured: New York National Guard's Fighting 69th Infantry, which was initially formed as a militia unit for Irish immigrants. The Fighting 69th joined the parade first in 1851 in case of anti-immigrant violence against the Irish.

Nowadays, the parade website says, about 150,000 people march.

Conway — who will be wearing a top hat, a morning coat with a green, white and orange sash and a shillelagh — is putting a piece of boxwood sprigs in the hat in honor of what the men of the Fighting 69th place in the Velcro of their Army combat uniform. The Fighting 69th has led the parade every year since 1851.

Conway said that food insecurity and hunger are particularly acute nowadays — worsened by inflation, the effects of the pandemic, and the end last month of a temporary boost to food stamp benefits millions received through a pandemic-era increase of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP, formerly known as food stamps.

According to statistics from the nonprofit Feeding America, 1.9 million people in New York State are facing hunger.

Representing Suffolk County as one of the 17 aides to the grand marshal will be Agnes O’Leary of Ridge, 75, whose great-grandparents came from Ireland.

“I don’t think anybody in this country — or anywhere — should go hungry, and as an Irish American many of the people of my ancestry left Ireland because of the Great Famine, because of being hungry, so it hits home with the Irish Americans when we see people that need to eat,” said O’Leary, the New York State president of the Ladies Ancient Order of Hibernians, which has about 1,000 members on Long Island.

Conway, who will be attending with his wife, children, siblings, nieces, nephews and friends, has helped spearhead the fundraising, largely through personal appeals to his network.

“I’m 64 years old. I’ve been working for almost 40 years,” he said. “So I know a lot of people, you know?”

By Matthew Chayes

matthew.chayes@newsday.comchayesmatthew

Matthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.