Debate contribution: St Patrick’s Day in Downpatrick

Debate contribution by Mr Colin McGrath on 12 May 2026.

MLA

Mr Colin McGrath

Party at the time

Social Democratic and Labour Party

Date

12 May 2026

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Adjournment

Heading

St Patrick’s Day in Downpatrick

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5528768

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Thank you very much, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am glad to have secured the Adjournment debate because this matters not just to me, but to the people whom I represent and to a town that should be a source of pride for the entire island and, indeed, the world over: I am, of course, talking about Downpatrick. Let us be honest about it: Downpatrick should be thriving; it should be leading; and it should be setting a standard. Nowhere should that leadership be clearer than in how we celebrate St Patrick. Downpatrick is not just another town that is having a celebration or a parade; it is where St Patrick is buried, and it is the place where his story lives. It is the place that can say to the world with authenticity and confidence that this is where it all began. For a long time, we acted like we believed that. When you look back through the history of St Patrick's Day in Downpatrick, what strikes you is not just the scale of what happened but the ambition that there was behind it. It was not simply a parade moving through the streets for an hour before everyone went home again; it was a real festival that stretched across days and, sometimes, an entire week. It filled the town with music, markets, storytelling, theatre, pilgrimages, exhibitions, tours, dancing, crafts and family events. It brought people into the town centre and gave the place energy and life. In 2003, the festival programme spoke about "Painting the Town Comic Red". There were carnival parades, outdoor theatres, steam trains, historical tours, live music workshops and storytelling events. In 2011, there were over 40 events across an entire week, including food markets, pilgrimages, museum events, a cross-community parade and family entertainment. When you read all of those old reports, what stands out is that there was belief: belief that Downpatrick mattered, that St Patrick's story could unite people and that the town could become a destination not just for a day but for an experience. Businesses benefited, schools could take part fully and families stayed in the town. People experienced Downpatrick not as somewhere to pass through but as the place to be. If we are honest, however, under the new so-called super council of Newry, Mourne and Down, we have drifted away from that vision. Too often now, St Patrick's Day in Downpatrick feels reduced to a tick-box exercise rather than genuine ambition: stage — tick; parade — tick; road closures — tick. Where is the imagination? Where is the atmosphere? Where is the sense that Downpatrick is the spiritual home of Ireland's patron saint? People in Downpatrick certainly notice the difference. They notice when events feel managed rather than inspired; when organisation slips; and when the town feels like an afterthought instead of the centrepiece that it should be. The danger is not simply disappointment for one afternoon; it is much bigger. The danger is that our council is lowering the expectations of what Downpatrick should be. I refuse to accept that. Our town has every ingredient required to succeed. What the council needs is ambition — real ambition. It needs ambition that says, "We will build a festival worthy of the place. We will create experiences across an entire week. We will invest in culture, heritage and tourism together. We will work with community groups, schools, churches, artists and businesses. We will make Downpatrick a destination again". It is not about nostalgia; it is about learning from what worked and about looking to the future. In 2032, we will celebrate the 1,600th anniversary of St Patrick. We have a rare opportunity to get this right. For example, what better way to celebrate the anniversary than to invite Pope Leo XIV to visit the North of Ireland, which no Pope has been able to do, to visit St Patrick's final resting place and to celebrate Mass in St Patrick's Catholic church? I hope that the Executive would support the extension of such an invitation. Minister, I appreciate that you are here to respond to the debate, and I know that the issues go beyond your Department. I reflect that funding has been made available from the Executive's Together: Building a United Community (T:BUC) funds in the past number of years, but, regrettably, the funding is always made available far too late. The council gets it only six or seven weeks before it is expected to deliver the festival, which is not enough time to sit down, make a game plan and work on the best way to put together the programme for St Patrick's Day. I hope that you can take that back to the Executive and say that, if the moneys are to be made available, they need to be made available much earlier in the year to allow proper planning to take place. Imagine what could be achieved with such genuinely strategic thinking. We could get a week-long international festival, rather than just divvying up a wee bit here and a wee bit there to keep everyone happy. Downpatrick is the home of St Patrick: we should celebrate that and amplify it across the world. If they can have festivals in New York, in Rio de Janeiro, in Moscow and across Europe, Downpatrick should be the home of that and the place that leads it, but that ambition requires support from the local authority and the Executive to drive it. I hope that we can see that and allow the cross-community cultural events to happen, the schools and youth organisations to be involved and the town centre to be alive with visitors, music and activity. That is not unrealistic and should not be that difficult to deliver. Let us stop thinking small about St Patrick's Day for Downpatrick. Let the local authority stop thinking that it is just another day in the year to get the tick box out and tick that things are in place. Let us reclaim the ambition that Downpatrick once had. As I said, it is not for nostalgia or simply for tourism brochures; it is because the town deserves it. While we have the Communities Minister here, I encourage him to use every tool available to him to help towns such as Downpatrick. As I sometimes say, Downpatrick is one of those towns that are not big enough to be a city that can attract bigger investment and not small enough to have a cohort of groups — one group of this and one group of that — coming together in a community.

There are a number of towns of that size across Northern Ireland that are in that spot in between, and, because of that, they lose out.

I know that there is potential for Downpatrick to get some investment from the Department for Communities as part of its regeneration. I hope that that is considered, and that it will get some of the additional moneys that it needs. If a town receives investment, that will be followed by the local community's working with that investment and delivering for people in the area. There are a number of areas across Northern Ireland where, following the amalgamation of councils, towns that were once the big town of a district are now a slightly smaller town in a bigger district. There is a psychological blow that comes with that. It is important that the Executive and councils do all that they can to deliver for towns such as Downpatrick so that they are given their chance to stand up and be counted. In some respects, the psychology of Downpatrick when it comes to St Patrick's Day typifies everything. It feels as though the events are put on just for the sake of it and, once they are over, they are out of the way and not thought about again until the prep begins for the events the following year. People in Downpatrick want, and deserve, better. They have earned better, and I hope that we will get it. St Patrick's Day is an excellent opportunity for us in Downpatrick to set out our stall for the world, and to be world leaders in that regard. It would allow our town to shine in the way in which it should.

1,384 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 15:37 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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