During her first two years as a contestant in the Chicago St. Patrick’s Day Parade Queen competition Kerry Ann Brennan was so nervous she couldn’t even smile.
But six years later, the 24-year-old Orland Park resident who was chosen as the 2010 parade queen can’t help but smile.
“I’m honestly honored to be chosen,” Brennan said. “We’re going to have so much fun.”
Brennan’s court includes fellow Orland Park resident Erin Mulcahy and Meghan Hayes, of Chicago’s Scottsdale neighborhood, as well as other attendants from Chicago’s North Side and far western suburbs.
Brennan, who has served as a member of the queen’s court for the past three years, said she had always been interested in the contest.
The parade is another way for her and her family to celebrate their Irish heritage, she said.
“Obviously, I’m 100 percent American, but all of my roots stem from Ireland,” she said.
She considers her selection as queen a tribute to her Irish ancestors, especially her great-grandmother Beatrice McLaughlin Judge, whom she got to know.
“She was the epitome of hard work,” Brennan said of McLaughlin Judge, who emigrated from County Mayo, Ireland.
McLaughlin Judge instilled in her children the importance of education in one’s success. Brennan, who is pursuing her masters of science in nursing degree, said her family has passed the “Irish love of education” on to her.
Brennan works as a nurse in the neonatal intensive care unit at Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, which she described as her dream job.
Brennan will be followed in the parade on March 13 by her court.
Mulcahy, 19, of Orland Park said she is very happy to be in this year’s parade.
“It means a lot to me,” said Mulcahy, who is majoring in special education at Moraine Valley Community College.
Both sets of great-grandparents are from Ireland.
She looks forward to the opportunity to talk about her Irish heritage at different events, she said.
Hayes, 25, who was also a member of the court last year, rounds out the representatives from the Southland.
She is in her fourth and final year of the doctor of pharmacy program at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Hayes said she grew up watching the queen and her court.
“It’s really fun,” Hayes said. “I’m from an Irish family. My family really encouraged me to get involved.”
Brennan said she and the court members are ready to have a good time.
“They’re a great group of girls,” she said.
Read the original article from SouthTown Star.
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