Malia Dailey, right, and her boyfriend Rick Miller sit at a table with their glasses of Guinness while waiting to order at Canyon’s Crown Pub. The eatery has long been a popular spot on St. Patrick’s Day.
For two years now, St. Patrick’s Day revelers have learned that it’s not easy being green during a global pandemic.
In March 2020, bars, restaurants and the annual Tucson St. Patrick’s Day Parade and Festival downtown were stopped in their tracks while preparing for their respective events, amid the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic to Southern Arizona.
Things moved quickly, said John Murphy, president of the group that puts on the fest and parade.
“We watched as the Fourth Avenue Street Fair fell, the Festival of Books fell,” Murphy said. “We were the last major event at that time to cancel.
“We had a year to put it on and a day-and-a-half to call it off.”
Today, with COVID numbers in steep decline, St. Patrick’s Day celebrations are back on calendars across Tucson, starting with the parade and festival, which are set to take place Saturday, March 12.
Murphy said after taking two years off, the event will return almost entirely as it was pre-COVID. The parade, which runs along South Stone Avenue starting at East 17th Street from 10:30 a.m. until noon, will have about 30 floats and walking entries, including a couple of bagpipe bands.
This year’s St. Patrick’s Day parade returns with about 30 floats and walking entries.
The festival, which will takes place at Armory Park, 222 S. Fifth Ave., from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m., will have live performances from local favorites, Nancy McCallion and Friends, Púca, and the Maguire Academy of Irish Dance, among them. Katie’s Randy Cat, a group that Murphy describes as “a rowdy, Irish, rock ‘n’ roll band,” from Toledo, Ohio, will serve as one of the headliners.
Dante’s Fire will be providing the corned beef and cabbage. The Parish is bringing Irish stew and Mariscos Chihuahua, the fish and chips. Guinness, Guinness Blonde and Harp will all be on tap.
The theme of this year’s event is “Sláinte, Tucson,” sláinte being a traditional Irish toast meaning “to your health.”
“We thought that was a very appropriate theme under the circumstances,” Murphy said.
Some bars and taprooms in town are also ready to party, just on a smaller scale.
Canyon’s Crown Pub, 6958 E. Tanque Verde Road, has always had a popular St. Patrick’s Day event, said Erin Stockellburg, who started as a server at Canyon’s Crown back when it was known as Firkin & Friar 14 years ago, and has worked as the general manager of the restaurant since 2009.
Corned beef and cabbage will be on the menu at Canyon’s Crown Pub this St. Patrick’s Day.
“Technically, we are really more of an English pub, but we don’t tell anybody that on St. Patrick’s Day,” she said.
Stockellburg said the pub has been plagued with staff shortages since the start of the pandemic. That led to significant problems last St. Patrick’s Day, when what seemed like half the city came calling for corned beef and cabbage.
“The kitchen was completely overwhelmed with the amount of take-out we had,” Stockellburg said. “We had to stop answering phone calls and seating in the restaurant for a while. We had never done that on St. Patrick’s Day.”
Still down in staffing, Stockellburg said the restaurant is going to offer a limited menu for the week leading up to St. Patrick’s Day, keeping with more traditional items like shepherd’s pie and fish and chips.
On St. Patrick’s Day proper, the restaurant will be turning off its phones and focusing efforts on dine-in customers. You can come for take-out, but you have to show up in person to order and your only option will be the corned beef and cabbage.
“We produce it in such large quantities,” Stockellburg said. “If people come to the pub and order a couple of orders of corned beef and cabbage plates to go, we will be able to pack it up real quick for them and get them on their way without bogging down the kitchen quite so much.”
Stockellburg said because COVID numbers have dropped and people are looking to celebrate, they are expecting a full house on St. Patrick’s.
“In years past, we have filled up within the first half-hour of opening,” she said. “It’s always very much a party atmosphere.”
Jerry Gosselin, left, and his brother Eddie Gosselin, who is visiting from out of town, talk at the bar at Arizona Beer House. The taproom is hosting an event on March 19 for St. Patrick’s Day.
A few miles south of Canyon’s Crown, Arizona Beer House, 150 S. Kolb Road, once home to one of the largest St. Patrick’s Day celebrations on Tucson’s east side, is planning a more-scaled back event for the second year in a row.
On the actual day, the taproom will have Culinary Graduate on-site with an all-Irish menu. On Saturday, March 19, it will host an all-day event with beer specials and more Irish-themed cuisine.
Prior to the pandemic, Arizona Beer House worked with Tucson Celtic Festival and Scottish Highland Games organizers to create a Paddy-palooza that extended into the parking lot.
But the pandemic has made planning problematic.
Copper Mine Brewing Company’s Irish Red and other beers can be found at Arizona Beer House, 150 S. Kolb Road.
“We would have had to get our own license to do that 90 days ago,” said Beer House manager Ellen McBride. “Who is planning 90 days out right now? Everybody has been idling, cautious of their next move because it is going to cost money.”
McBride said Arizona Beer House patrons will still show up and fun will be had by all. And the drop in cases, if it stays that way, will make it easier for more expansive St. Patrick’s Day events in the future.
“Hopefully, next year,” she said.
10 fun facts about St. Patrick’s Day
55 Percent of Americans plan to celebrate
American’s will spend over $5.6 billion on St Patrick ’s Day
The average participant will spend about $40.
Of those celebrating, 81 percent will wear green
The most common way to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day by far is to rock the green. About 81% of Americans will wear green on March 17, a number that has changed little over the last decade.
The average person will consume 4.2 drinks on St Patrick’s Day.
It turns out that the holiday’s rep for booze-soaked debauchery is, in large part, earned. St. Patrick’s Day is the #4 biggest drinking day of the year in America. New Year’s Eve tops the list, with Christmas and July 4 coming in as close runners-up.
13 million pints of Guinness will be consumed, which is 819 percent more than usual.
If St. Patrick’s Day had an official beer, it would have to be Guinness—it is, after all, the most popular beer in Ireland. In 1759, Arthur Guinness signed a 9,000-year lease on a dilapidated property at St. James Gate in Dublin, Ireland, and began brewing ale. A decade later in 1769, six-and-a-half barrels set sail for England, the first batch ever to leave the Emerald Isle. Guinness would go onto become one of the most successful beers in the world and the one most closely associated with Ireland.
30 percent of Americans plan to cook a special St Patrick’s Day meal. Cabbage shipments increase 70 percent
With the exception of potatoes, cabbage is more closely associated with Irish cuisine than just about any other food—and it seems that a head is in every American kitchen on St. Patrick’s Day. Like the potato, cabbage entered the Irish diet out of necessity. Potatoes were the only crop that poor Irish farmers could grow enough of to survive under the tenant farming system, which since the 1600s had forced millions of poor Irish farmers to toil for British landowners in their own country. When the potato crop failed, the Irish turned to the only other readily available source of food at their disposal—cabbage.
1962: First year Chicago River was dyed green
It is not Boston, but Chicago that lays claim to what is one of the most grandiose and famous St. Patrick’s Day traditions in the world. Every year since 1962, the city has dyed the Chicago River bright green in honor of the Emerald Isle’s most celebrated saint.
Massachusetts and New Hampshire have the highest percent Irish ancestry in the United States
In each state, 20 percent of residents have Irish ancestry.
Data from Stacker and WalletHub.
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