The first Saint Patrick’s Festival in Ireland was held in 1996.
The festival was created by the Irish government in the mid-1990s to present Ireland and its culture to an international audience. Its organisers wanted a major national celebration that could showcase Irish creativity, tourism and modern public life around 17 March.
The inaugural festival took place on 17 March 1996. It was not the first Saint Patrick’s Day parade in Ireland: Waterford held Ireland’s first parade in 1903, while Dublin’s first official state-sponsored parade followed in 1931. The 1996 event instead marked the beginning of the modern, government-backed Saint Patrick’s Festival brand.
The festival expanded quickly. It became a three-day event in 1997 and later grew to five days, combining parades with concerts, outdoor theatre, cultural events and fireworks. A common mix-up is treating the 1996 festival as the beginning of all Irish Saint Patrick’s Day celebrations; public observances and parades long predated it.