Dublin, Ireland — To the disbelief of Dubliners and their foreign guests, fears of foot-and-mouth disease have driven St. Patrick's Day out of Ireland.
"We're in disaster-recovery mode," said John Cox, a tour operator coordinating visits this week by marching bands from Colorado to Delaware.
All St. Patrick's Day parades in Ireland have been canceled for fear of spreading foot-and-mouth disease. The Boston Police Gaelic Column Pipe and Drum Band was to play in the parade in Athlone, Ireland. On Friday, Dick Wells, left, bass drummer, enjoyed a pint with drum major Jim Barry in an Athlone pub.
All had hoped to march today before an audience exceeding 1 million, but now must make do with private performances for traveling friends and family just one casualty in Ireland's wider war to bar the livestock disease.
Although the government announced Friday that some small-scale sports events could resume next weekend after a more than three-week ban, the efforts to minimize large gatherings of people particularly those traveling from Britain or rural areas means Dublin and other Irish towns will have no official St. Patrick's Day festivities.
"At the moment I've got 18 tons of fireworks under my bed," said Dominic Campbell, artistic director for Dublin's planned four-day St. Patrick's Festival, whose frustrated organizers and sponsors hope may be staged later this year.
"I don't know if we'll still be able to call it St. Patrick's Day. But at least the weather will be better then," he said.
Event organizers said their records were incomplete and didn't know for sure when the festivities were last cancelled, saying they believe it was called off or postponed in 1926 or 1927 because of bad weather.
So far, the Republic of Ireland hasn't had a confirmed case of foot-and-mouth disease, which doesn't harm humans but could devastate the country's livestock industry. Restrictions began after one case was confirmed March 1 in neighboring Northern Ireland long after visiting U.S. bands had booked nonrefundable flights.
"The chance to march in St. Patrick's Day in Dublin was the main billing for the trip, but this is still a wonderful opportunity and the kids' morale is staying high," said Joey Lucita, assistant band director for the Rebels of Jack C. Hays High School in Buda, Tex.
Kilkenny hotel director Patrick Curran says the Irish will have no trouble making their own fun today.
"The Irish have a way of generating a good feeling even when things are down," he said, adding: "That's what the pubs are for anyway."
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