History will be made on Sunday March 14 at 1 PM, as the Friends of St. Patrick present their 60th Annual Miller Place-Rocky Point St. Patrick’s Day Parade.

To honor this milestone event, the Friends of St. Patrick will honor all Grand Marshals who have led the parade over the past six decades.

In 1950 local businessmen John M. Sullivan and George Faulkner formed a committee to create an event to rouse the local residents out of their homes from a largely summer community, and allow friends and neighbors to intermingle and reconnect with each other after months of winter hibernation. What a better way to welcome the early arrival of spring than to celebrate St. Patrick, and a parade was organized in his honor where green would replace the grayness of winter for the day.

On the afternoon of Sunday March 11, 1951, Grand Marshal John M. Sullivan, adorned with a top hat, mounted a horse in front of his business (then Sullivan’s Tavern) on the northeast corner of Harrison Avenue and Route 25A in Miller Place. He set forth his journey from the same location that it does today, eastward along a then mostly wooded Route 25A to his final destination of Rocky Point with his parade in tow. From that day forward a precedent was set and the tradition continues, with the Friends of St. Patrick now having second and third generation members on its committee.

Year after year, the parade grew in volume and popularity and has now become the most anticipated event of our local hamlets. It draws an estimated 50,000 plus spectators, and has thousands more that march and participate, making this parade the largest in Brookhaven Town and the second oldest in Suffolk County.

All are invited to attend a gala celebration marking the historic 60th Anniversary of the Miller Place-Rocky Point St. Patrick’s Day Parade and the past Grand Marshals. On Sunday February 28 at The Grand Ball Room at East Wind Caterers on Route 25A in Wading River, the Friends of St. Patrick will hold their annual fundraising Cocktail Party from 4 to 8 PM. Tickets are available now by calling: 631-744-2502.

For further information regarding our events and organization please visit our website at: www.friendsofsaintpatrick.com. For historical information, please contact Committee Historian Jim O’Sullivan at: 516-242-7205.