“Who would have thought something that started as a joke would last 60 years?” she said.

The parade is believed to be the longest-running St. Patrick’s Day parade in Minnesota.

“The first parade was done as a joke. We had dinner with friends and talked about starting a parade. Bill (her husband, also known as the blarneymeister), organized it,” said O’Connor.

The parade began at 5 p.m. and went from the Kaiserhoff to Turner Hall, where participants ate dinner.

“It was a lot of fun stopping traffic on Broadway (during rush hour),” said O’Connor who was the Irish queen in the parade, as were both of her daughters. This year, her youngest granddaughter, Camryn Poulson, daughter of Molly O’Connor, is the Irish queen.

O’Connor said the first year of the parade included a St. Paul Pioneer Press article about it by Oliver Towne, the pen name for Garth “Gary” Hiebert, a New Ulm native who worked for the New Ulm Daily Journal before writing in St. Paul.

“He (Hiebert) wrote this big article about us. The next year, St. Paul and Minneapolis had big St. Patrick’s Day parades.

She recalled what happened when she was St. Patrick’s Day parade queen. She said New Ulm firefighters came to Turner Hall and kidnapped her until Bill (O’Connor) paid them ransom to release her.

O’Connor said the 2025 parade committee invited New Ulm volunteer extraordinaire Don Brand to be part of it.

“He saved the parade one year when Bill was in the hospital. Brand got the New Ulm Battery, Concord Singers and lined up a boat from Retzlaff Hardware for us to ride in. Don always said he could organize it all in an hour,” she said.

Brand said he recruited New Ulm concertina maker Christy Hengel to play “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling,” on concertina in the 1980 parade.

“I just wanted to keep the tradition going. I’m not Irish at all. New Ulm has always liked parades. Heritagefest, Memorial Day, whatever. This year, I’m riding with the Irish next to (Minnesota Court of Appeals Judge) John Rodenberg,” he said.

Retired Journal Editor Kevin Sweeney said Bill O’Connor originated the Blarney St. Patrick’s Day parade article in The Journal many years ago. He said one of the first Journal reporters to interview him was Jon Tevlin, who later became a Minneapolis Star Tribune columnist.

Sweeney wrote in a Journal column that he picked up the local blarney story job in the 1980s. He continues to write it today, in retirement.

“Bill always loved it when someone would take his St. Patrick’s Day comments seriously. He always said the St. Patrick’s Day celebration would end at midnight when his wife, Mary, would dance the Irish job on a Kaiserhoff bar. One Sunday, after the article appeared, Bill was about to enter St. Mary’s for mass and was accosted by an angry, elderly woman,” Sweeney wrote.

“I don’t think a man like you should be allowed in church,” she told him.

“Why not?” Bill asked.

“Any man that would make his wife dance on a bar shouldn’t be allowed in church,” she said.

The parade begins at 5 p.m. Monday, March 17 at St. Mary’s Church on Minnesota Street South and continue north to the Glockenspiel at Fourth Street North.