It never takes much to get Tricolours flying on the Falls Road, and the first St Patrick's Day parades for two years were more than enough of an excuse.
Parades from north, south and east Belfast also converged on the city hall for a concert but the largest, as always, came from the west of the city.
While not on the same scale as Dublin, New York or Chicago - "Three guys on stilts and a marching band? Come on," is how one uncharitable bystander put it - what the events lacked in large-scale pizzazz they made up for in community support.
The parade was preceded by a phalanx of a dozen black taxis bedecked with Tricolour ribbons and stencils of leprechauns.
Some 4,000 people gathered to watch and then follow it down the Falls Road into the city centre. In a new departure the Northern Ireland Fire Service took the opportunity to warn people about the dangers of unattended fires.
Their "fire safety gang" had the best costumes of all but there were many contenders as this year's theme was "Children of the World". Around 50 children with their faces painted with flags followed what was the only real float of the parade.
Despite a strong body of opinion that St Patrick was a proto-Protestant who would probably have felt more at home with the anti-papal rhetoric of Free Presbyterians than in the Archbishop's Palace, participation in the Belfast parade remains a predominantly nationalist event.
As if to underline the fact, the parade from west Belfast was delayed for a short while by three bomb scares. British army experts dealt with three suspicious devices which were all declared hoaxes.
International participation in the event was limited to a few curious Spanish students and an African drum and dance band which took to the stage at the City Hall.
At the start of the day it seemed as if St Patrick would smile and hold off on the rain but by the time the crowds reached the City Hall they had been soaked by a number of squally showers.
- While U2's Beautiful Day blared out from speakers, modern Ireland's saints weren't fooling anyone.
The people of Belfast have endured more than heavy rain, though, and, to prove it, pupils and parents from the Holy Cross primary school in Ardoyne led the parade from north Belfast. They joined as many as 10,000 others at City Hall for an afternoon of Irish and African dancing and music.
In Derry, singer Brian Kennedy headlined a free outdoor concert in the city's Guildhall Square, and an Ulster-Scots concert was held at the Ebrington centre.