Timing is everything.
And few authors have had better timing than Bridget Houlihan Kennedy.
Her book, “Chicago’s South Side Irish Parade” (Arcadia Publishing), was released Feb. 22, just a few weeks before St. Patrick’s Day.
And it’s just a few weeks before what would have been the 32nd annual South Side Irish St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Chicago’s Beverly and Morgan Park communities.
The parade, which basically had become too big for its britches, won’t be held this year. Organizers decided to cancel it shortly after the 2009 parade drew an estimated 300,000, and there were many brushes with Chicago police.
“The parade became a victim of its own success. It was a great thing, but for the people who lived there, it became too overwhelming,” Houlihan Kennedy said.
Oh, and about that timing that “worked out perfectly” for the author.
“For it to come out the first year there’s no parade gives people a great opportunity to remember 31 years of the parade,” Houlihan Kennedy said.
Gone but not forgotten, the parade marches on in her book, which features a collection of more than 200 vintage photographs.
Many of the photos are from private collections.
Houlihan Kennedy began advertising in local church bulletins in 2008, seeking photos of the parade.
She was flooded with “zillions and zillions” of responses from people in the community, parishes and residents such as the Hendry and Coakley families, both with ties to the first parade.
“It’s better to have too many pictures,” she said.
Houlihan Kennedy, 32, who lived in Beverly until her family moved to Wilmette when she was 2 years old, made the annual trek to the parade.
“It means a lot for everyone involved. It captures the spirit of the South Side Irish, plain and simple. For a lot of people, it’s a chance to get back to the community, to come back to see family and friends, and to celebrate the Irish heritage,” she said.
“Look at us. We’d come down from Wilmette to Beverly ever year. It’s a wonderful excuse to get your green on, to be at the parade,” she said.
Her book tries to capture the excitement and the Irish heritage from all those Sunday parades.
She’s organized the photos into chapters with themes such as floats, costumes, grand marshals, families, leprechauns, St. Patrick, or just people watching the parade.
“At the end, we see the 2009 parade and we can see how much it grew. There are people everywhere,” Houlihan Kennedy said.
Houlihan Kennedy has her favorite photos from the book.
“There’s a picture from the very first parade of The Wee Folk. It’s a little fuzzy, but Arcadia did a great job reproducing the photos,” she said.
She also likes a photo from 1983, the first year the parade marched down Western Avenue.
“You see a couple floats going by with cars going past in the other direction. That first year, the parade went down only the southbound lanes of Western Avenue. Can you imagine? You’d never see that today,” she said.
This is the first book by Houlihan Kennedy, a former newspaper reporter for the Pioneer Press, sister papers of the SouthtownStar. She was inspired to write a book when she learned of a book about Bosnian-Americans in Chicago.
“I was surprised there was a market for that. If a book about Bosnian-Americans would sell, there certainly was a market for a book about the South Side Irish Parade,” she said.
She will be selling copies of the book at the South Side Irish Family Fest March 13 at the Beverly Arts Center, 2407 W. 111th St., Chicago.
The book is available on Amazon and at Bookie’s, 2419 W. 103rd St., Chicago.
Houlihan Kennedy now lives in Chicago’s Lincoln Square community with her husband, Michael, and their 9-month-old son Donny.
GET A COPY
Bridget Houlihan Kennedy will be selling copes of “Chicago’s South Side Irish Parade” at the South Side Irish Family Fest March 13 at the Beverly Arts Center, 2407 W. 111th St., Chicago. The book is available on Amazon and at Bookie’s, 2419 W. 103rd St., Chicago.
Read the original article from SouthTown Star.
Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services