A selection of the pictures I took yesterday are up on Flickr.

It may have appeared seamless by the time it got to Albert Square but where I was standing, across from Urbis, the parade kept being held up for busses coming down Shudehill. And it was very windy there, I think I’m suffering from getting so cold (and so old the cold can affect me so).

There were a lot of marching bands, as you’d expect. I kept trying to get a shot with a drummer’s hands blurred as they hammered away a rhythm. This is the best I could manage-

What I didn’t expect was all the tractors. I guess farming is still a large part of the Irish identity. Whatever the reason, it warmed my country boy heart to see so many of them. This one, in particular, I took a lot of photos of-

It’s a Minneapolis Moline. Even without the name giving it away there was something about the size and stance tha marked it as an American creation. Flickr has many more Minneapolis Moline photos if you want to get your Yankee tractor on.

Check out the rest of the pictures. I’ll leave you with one of the man himself, the very Saint Patrick-