St Patrick is a tall woman from Glantane outside Mallow in Co Cork. Obviously, this year's parade is going to be very modern. The saint on stilts is Margo Barrow, a member of the Down to Earth Theatre Company, who stands at the gates to Dublin Castle's Coach House welcoming us in.
US visitors march through to the lively beat of The Girl from Dungannon as played by three members of the Narraghmore Pipe Band - Mar- tin Dempsey, Martin Hickey and Kieran Murphy - who don't stop piping and squeezing even to talk to the press. My goodness, their sound is uplifting. The organisers of the St Patrick's Festi- val 2001 are giving us a sneak preview of what's in store for the city over the four-day event, which will start on Friday, March 16th.
Maria Moynihan, chief executive of the festival, asks us for a date. "Meet me at the river," she says brazenly to a packed room, standing there in her tangerine silk suit, looking like a . . . a geisha girl. She's from Rathmore in Co Kerry and "not related to any footballers", she tells us. And we hadn't even asked.
The three young men from the group Relish are ready to rock, man. They're from Downpatrick in Co Down - brothers Ken and Carl Papenfus and Darren Campbell. Their name - as in Ballymaloe relish? Eh, no, they explain. "As in to take pleasure in something," they say. Of course. John Spillane, the singer from Cork city, who'll also be taking part in the festival, says his new album - Will we be brilliant or not is due out in late April.
Another group, which is ready to rock, is Switch, from West Cork. Catherine Foley (no relation to this writer), Denise Goggin and Jo- anne Coughlan are about "keeping our feet well on the ground". But are they ready for the sex symbol status that must come? "We're musicians, not models," they retort. No doubt Kevin Gildea, of The Kevin Gildeas, is ready. He and his line-up, including singer/songwriter Sean Miller, in a combination of hot comedy and cool beats play at Guff!, the Sunday night regular comedy gig at the HQ Hall of Fame tomorrow.
Other parade lovers at the party include Ed McDonald, a city shopping-centre manager, Teresa Brophy, of Bord Glas and John Sheehan who is "like Bloom, an ad catcher", he says. Be prepared, warns artistic director, Dominic Camp- bell. "We will be turning the city into a playground." Oh, my goodness.