The 26th Annual St. Pat’s For All Parade in Queens, Lenapehoking (New York City), was on March 2nd, 2025. The parade was from 43rd Street and Skillman Ave to 58th St and Woodside Ave.
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“The St. Pat’s for All Parade is an annual event that honors Irish culture and promotes inclusivity. It was established on March 5, 2000, and takes place in the Sunnyside and Woodside neighborhoods of Queens, New York City, which traditionally have been home to Irish New Yorkers. The parade was initiated by Brendan Fay, a gay Irish immigrant, in response to the exclusion of LGBTQ+ groups like the Irish Lesbian and Gay Organization from the New York City St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Manhattan. Fay’s objective is to celebrate the diversity of New York City, guided by the motto “Cherishing All the Children of the Nation Equally,” which originates from the Proclamation of the Irish Republic during the Easter Rising of 1916.
Brendan Fay migrated from Drogheda to Queens in 1984. Fay studied theology at St. John’s University and became a religious studies teacher at Mary Louis Academy in Queens. In 1988, he helped organize the Irish Lesbian and Gay Organization (ILGO). ILGO was established following Fay’s call for an Irish gay and lesbian group at an event at the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop. In 1994, Fay founded the Lavender and Green Alliance.” More info: www.stpatsforall.org
People that support Gaza and the occupied West Bank, Palestine, marched with Palestinian flags.
Saint Patrick’s Battalion
Mexicans thank the Saint Patrick’s Battalion for defending Mexico when the Democratic Party in the United States of America invaded Mexico from 1846 to 1848.
The Democratic Party (Democrat US President James Knox Polk) invaded Mexico from April 25, 1846 to February 2, 1848.
“In 1844, President James K. Polk ran on a Democratic platform that supported manifest destiny, the idea that Americans were predestined to occupy the entire North American continent. The last act of Polk’s predecessor, John Tyler, had been to annex the Republic of Texas in 1845. Polk wanted to lay claim to California, New Mexico, and land near the disputed southern border of Texas. Mexico, however, was not so eager to let go of these territories.
Polk started out by trying to buy the land. He sent an American diplomat, John Slidell, to Mexico City to offer $30 million for it. But the Mexican government refused to even meet with Slidell. Polk grew frustrated. Determined to acquire the land, he sent American troops to Texas in January of 1846 to provoke the Mexicans into war.
When the Mexicans fired on American troops in April 25, 1846, Polk had the excuse he needed. He declared, “[Mexico] has invaded our territory (that was FALSE) and shed American blood upon American soil,” and sent the order for war to Congress on May 11.” More info: www.pbs.org.
“On May 12, 1846, the United States Senate voted 40 to 2 to go to war with Mexico. President James K. Polk had accused Mexican troops of having attacked Americans on U.S. soil, north of the Rio Grande. But Mexico claimed this land as its own territory and accused the American military of having invaded.” More info: www.senate.gov .
“On May 13, 1846, President James K. Polk signed a declaration of war against Mexico. Polk had submitted his war message to Congress on May 11 after General Zachary Taylor and his troops had clashed with Mexican forces on the northern bank of the Rio Grande, and Congress quickly approved the declaration of war against Mexico. After the President signed the declaration, he and his cabinet decided to conduct a three-pronged war: General Taylor would secure northern Mexico, an army under Stephen Kearny would capture New Mexico and California, and a third force under the command of Winfield Scott would capture Mexico City.” More info: millercenter.org.
“Following the capture of Mexico City in September 1847, Nicholas Trist, chief clerk of the Department of State and Polk’s peace emissary, began negotiations for a peace treaty with the Mexican Government under terms similar to those pursued by Slidell the previous year. Polk soon grew concerned by Trist’s conduct, however, believing that he would not press for strong enough terms from the Mexicans, and because Trist became a close friend of General Winfield Scott, a Whig who was thought to be a strong contender for his party’s presidential nomination for the 1848 election. Furthermore, the war had encouraged expansionist Democrats to call for a complete annexation of Mexico.” More info: history.state.gov.
“Not all members of the San Patricio Brigade were Irish. Some were escaped slaves and free Blacks who saw Mexico, a nation that had outlawed slavery, as a freer country than the United States and who fought against the expansion of slavery. Others were catholic immigrants from other countries such as Germany, Poland, and France who grew disenchanted with the United States due to the widespread bigotry towards Catholics.” More info: www.nps.gov.
“As dawn broke on the morning of September 13, 1847, a group of men stood on hastily erected gallows, nooses secured around their necks. In the distance, they watched as the relentless artillery bombardment rained down on Mexican troops at Chapultepec Castle, home to a military academy and site of the penultimate major battle in the war between Mexico and the United States. In the days prior, other members of their battalion had been publicly whipped, branded and hanged; theirs was to be yet another grisly spectacle of revenge. The last thing they witnessed was U.S. soldiers storming the desperately guarded structure on the horizon. The American colonel overseeing their execution pointed at the castle, reminding the men that their lives would extend only as long as it took for their death to come at the most humiliating moment possible. As the U.S. flag was raised at approximately 9:30 a.m., the condemned men were “launched into eternity,” as newspapers would later relay to readers in the United States.
The men who died that day were not ordinary enemy fighters. They were captured soldiers from El Batallón de San Patricio, or the Saint Patrick’s Battalion, who had fought fiercely in the Battle of Churubusco just weeks earlier. Many were Irish immigrants who had come to the United States to escape economic hardship, but found themselves fighting in the Mexican-American War against their adopted country. The conflict pitted many Catholic immigrants to America against a largely Catholic Mexico and these soldiers had switched sides, joining Mexican forces in the fight against the United States. They were, for the most, part die-hard believers in the cause around which they had coalesced—defending Mexico—until those very last moments on that September morning. Though they were on the losing side of the war, their actions are still celebrated in Mexico today, where they are viewed as heroes.
John Riley, an Irish immigrant who once trained West Point cadets in artillery, was the founding member, along with a handful of others who would later join him, of the San Patricios.” More info: www.smithsonianmag.com.
The Republican Party (Republican US President William Howard Taft and Republican US Ambassador to Mexico Henry Lane Wilson) organized the coup against former Mexican President Francisco I. Madero on February 9, 1913 and also supported the assassination of former President Francisco I. Madero, on February 22, 1913.
The Democratic Party (Democrat US President Thomas Woodrow Wilson) invaded Veracruz, Mexico from April 21, 1914 to November 23, 1914.
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