Sunshine brings record crowds out to celebrate St Patrick’s Day in Manchester

The bright spring sunshine brought record numbers out to celebrate St Patrick’s Day 2010 in Manchester.

Special events took place all over the city as part of the 2010 Manchester Irish Festival. Mulligans of Deansgate in the city centre closed off the road outside of the venue and erected a giant outdoor bar. The popular Irish pub who were one of the main sponsors of this years festival attracted bumper crowds all day long with Irish breakfast served from 9am in the morning.

South Manchester’s award winning Irish club, St Kentigern’s Irish club hosted a special Manchester Irish Festival breakfast in the morning for members of the Irish community and flew over top Irish band ‘The Indians’ for their sell out evening concert.

Levenshulme which is home to the biggest Irish community outside of London saw crowds queuing up to get into its numerous pubs and venues to enjoy the free Tradfest concerts sponsored by Guinness. Grace Kelly set a new UK record for the most Irish musicians playing in the Union Irish Bar during the afternoon. Over in Hennigan’s Sports Bar during the evening Molly Lucy, Denise Morgan, Dominic Morgan and Julian Homer entertained the capacity crowds in a special St Patrick’s night concert.

Lawrence Hennigan from the Levenshulme Pub Company said “It has been one of the busiest St Patrick’s Day celebrations we have ever had. The crowds started arriving as soon as we opened the doors at 11am and did not leave until we closed the doors.

We had a number of celebrities down enjoying the atmosphere including Olympic boxer John Murray and a few actors from Channel 4’s Shameless series.”