The Diplomat
For the second year running, Tourism Ireland is celebrating St. Patrick’ s Day in style in Madrid with Ireland Week, a cultural initiative that will take place until Sunday 17 March and includes a wide range of activities related to Irish dance, cinema, history, gastronomy and literature, which will give the city an Irish flavour.
Carlos Núñez will give a surprise performance today morning in the Madrid Metro to officially open Ireland Week 2024. Accompanied by other musicians and several traditional Irish dancers, the Galician piper will play live for underground users.
After the surprise musical performance, Celtic sounds and dances will continue to fill the concourses and set the pace for transfers at the central stations of Ópera, Callao and Gran Vía, all on line 5, the green line, the colour of Ireland.
Following last year’s success, a group of musicians and dancers from the University College Dublin Dance Society will perform throughout the week for the enjoyment of passengers. They will begin on Tuesday 12, from 18:00 to 20:00, at Ópera station itself ; and will continue on Wednesday and Thursday, from 18:00 to 20:00, in Callao; Friday at the same time in Gran Vía; and Saturday and Sunday also in Gran Vía, from 12:00 to 14:00. During the week the lights at Gran Vía station will also change from blue to green, and the large screen in the station lobby will show travellers beautiful landscapes and emblematic corners of the Emerald Isle.
The highlight of the celebrations will take place on Saturday, the eve of St Patrick’s Day, with Celtic folklore and the sound of bagpipes completely flooding the centre of the capital. The parade in honour of Ireland’s patron saint will start at 4.30pm from the Metrópolis building and will run along Madrid’s Gran Vía until it reaches the Plaza de España. This year it will bring together more than 500 pipers from all over Spain, almost doubling the number of the 2023 edition.
The Madrid St Patrick’s Day Parade is an initiative of Asturian musician Bras Rodrigo and the Fundación Banda de Gaitas de Corvera with the collaboration of Tourism Ireland and the Irish Embassy and the sponsorship of Guinness. The ambition of the organisers is to turn Madrid into one of the most important parades in the world, on a par with cities such as New York, London or -of course- Dublin.
You can still discover what Ireland tastes like in the Mercado de la Paz (Calle Ayala 28), because there will be tastings of Irish products today Tuesday from 11am to 1pm and tomorrow Wednesday from 11am to 12.30pm. And on Thursday afternoon, Shane Tivenan, Irish writer based in Spain and winner of the RTÉ Francis MacManus prize for the best short fiction story (awarded by Irish public radio and television), will give a reading at the Desperate Literature bookshop (C/ Campomanes, 13). The evening will be entertained by the Irish music group Triantan.
The weekend will continue with a St. Patrick’s Day show at the Monumental (Friday 15), a concert by Asturian piper Bras Rodrigo at the Sala Fitz (Saturday 16) and a traditional Irish music and dance show by the Irish Treble at the Sala Galileo (Sunday 17).
St. Patrick’s Day in other parts of Spain. You can consult all the events, both in Madrid and in other Spanish cities, at this link.
