London's St Patrick's Day parade and festival is organised by the Mayor of London and held on a Sunday close to 17 March, not usually on the day itself. In 2026 it ran on Sunday 15 March: the parade left Hyde Park at midday and the free festival filled Trafalgar Square from 12:00 to 18:00.
The event is bigger than most visitors expect, because London has one of the largest Irish populations of any city outside Ireland. What passes along Piccadilly is not a novelty parade; it is the Irish county associations, community groups, marching bands and dance schools of a city where Irish emigration has been a continuous fact for two centuries.
Our month guide to London in March puts the day in context. This page covers the detail: who is in the parade and why, what is on the stage, the accessibility arrangements, which are unusually good, and the honest position on the pubs.
St Patrick's Festival in London
- Organiser
- The Greater London Authority, for the Mayor of London
- Cost
- Free. No ticket needed
- 2026 (held)
- Sunday 15 March 2026, 12:00-18:00, Trafalgar Square
- Parade 2026
- 12:00 from Hyde Park, via Piccadilly, Piccadilly Circus, Regent Street St James's and Cockspur Street, past Trafalgar Square, finishing on Whitehall
- 2027
- Not announced as of September 2026. St Patrick's Day itself, 17 March 2027, is a Wednesday
The county associations, and why they lead the parade
The groups at the front of the London parade are the Irish County Associations. Each of Ireland's thirty-two counties has, or has had, an association in London: a social and mutual-aid organisation founded by emigrants from that county, running dances, sports, funerals and help for new arrivals.
They date from the waves of Irish emigration to Britain in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and many are still active. When you see a banner for Mayo, Kerry or Donegal going past Piccadilly Circus, you are looking at an institution that has existed in London for generations.
Behind them come community groups, marching bands, Irish dance schools and carnival performers. The parade is led by a Grand Marshal chosen each year; in 2026 it was the writer and broadcaster Emma Dabiri.
The festival is supported by Irish state and commercial bodies, including Tourism Ireland and Bord Bia, the Irish food board, and by the Irish newspapers published in Britain. That mixture, a London local authority event run with Irish institutions and the Irish community in Britain, is what the day actually is.
The parade: route and timing
In 2026 the parade set off at 12:00 from Hyde Park and followed Piccadilly, Piccadilly Circus, Regent Street St James's and Cockspur Street, passing Trafalgar Square and finishing on Whitehall. The route has been broadly stable for years but is confirmed each year.
Piccadilly is the best place to watch. It is wide, the pavements are deep, and the parade is still fresh and tightly formed. By the time the groups reach Cockspur Street they have been walking for the better part of an hour and are surrounded by the festival crowd.
Be on Piccadilly before 11:45 if you want a place at the front. Arriving at noon puts you two or three rows back, which is still fine for the bands and the floats but not for the dancers.
What is actually on in Trafalgar Square
The square is not simply a place where the parade ends. It runs a full six-hour programme, and in 2026 it included considerably more than music.
- A main stage with traditional and contemporary Irish performers, hosted by a compère, running from midday to 6pm. Every spoken segment had a British Sign Language interpreter.
- Sessions from the Irish Creative Collective: comedy, spoken word, music and short films.
- An exhibition, "Out in the World: Ireland's LGBTQ+ Diaspora".
- Free drop-in arts and crafts workshops for children, run by Artburst.
- Oldbog Cottage, a walk-in reconstruction of a traditional Irish cottage.
- Food stalls and craft stalls around the square.
- Poems on the Underground, with Irish poets displayed at Charing Cross and Covent Garden stations.
The mix changes from year to year and the line-up is published a few weeks in advance on the Mayor of London's events pages. The shape, though, is consistent: one music stage, one quieter cultural strand, one thing for children, and food.
The children's workshops are the best-kept secret of the day. They are free, they need no booking, and they occupy a corner of the square with far more room than the area in front of the stage. If you are bringing small children, head there first and watch the stage from the back.
The 2027 date is not yet published
St Patrick's Day in 2027 falls on Wednesday 17 March. London's festival is almost always held on the Sunday nearest to it, which would put it on either 14 or 21 March, but the Mayor's office had not announced a date when we checked in September 2026 and we will not guess.
The date normally appears on london.gov.uk in January or early February. If you are planning a March trip around it, check then.
Note that 17 March itself is not a public holiday in England. Offices, shops and schools all work as normal, and there is no city-wide celebration on the day unless it happens to fall on the festival weekend.
Accessibility
This is one of the better-organised free events in London for disabled visitors, and the arrangements are published rather than improvised.
Trafalgar Square has level access and is fully wheelchair accessible. There is a hearing loop on the north terrace, and British Sign Language interpretation for all speech on the main stage. A reserved accessible viewing area can be booked in advance by email through the event listing.
A Mobiloo, an accessible toilet with a hoist and an adult changing table, is provided on site. Ear defenders are available on request, which matters at an event with amplified music and a large crowd. Stewards and Team London volunteers in purple vests are stationed across the square and are there to be asked.
Blue Badge parking bays are available on St Martin's Street, beside the National Gallery.
Getting there
Westminster station is step-free and about ten minutes' walk from the square. Charing Cross is closer, roughly 325 metres away, and is also step-free. Our guide to step-free transport in London explains how to plan a route that avoids stairs.
A dozen bus routes serve Trafalgar Square on an ordinary day, including the 3, 6, 9, 11, 12, 15, 23, 87, 88, 91, 139 and 176. On festival day many of them are diverted for several hours while the parade route is closed, so check the bus diversions before you rely on one.
Road closures affect the whole of Piccadilly, Regent Street St James's, Cockspur Street and Whitehall for most of the day. Driving into the West End on that Sunday is not practical.
The pubs, and how to tell a real one
Every pub in central London will put up a tricolour and sell green-dyed lager on St Patrick's weekend. Most of them have no Irish connection whatsoever, and the drink is worse than usual because the bar is four deep.
The Irish pubs that actually mean it are mostly not in the West End. They are in the areas where Irish emigrants settled in numbers: Kilburn and Cricklewood in the north-west, Camden Town and Archway to the north, and Hammersmith and parts of west London. Those are the places with live traditional music sessions rather than a playlist, with Irish sport on the television, and with a landlord from Ireland rather than a chain's area manager.
If you want a session rather than a scrum, ask at the Irish Cultural Centre in Hammersmith, which programmes music and events through the year and whose choir has performed at the Trafalgar Square festival. Our guide to live music venues covers where traditional sessions happen more generally, and Camden Town is the easiest of the historic Irish areas for a visitor to reach.
Two practical warnings. Pubs across the city are extremely busy that weekend and many stop serving food early because the kitchen cannot cope. And drinking in the street is restricted in several central London boroughs under public space protection orders, so buying cans and standing outside is not a reliable plan; our page on alcohol laws and drinking in public explains where it applies. If you are new to the British system of ordering at the bar, pub etiquette for visitors will save you some confusion on the busiest afternoon of the year.
Book a table if eating out matters to you. Restaurants and pubs near Trafalgar Square are fully booked from lunchtime on festival Sunday, and walk-in waits of over an hour are normal. Reserve, or plan to eat well before midday or after 19:00.
Irish London the rest of the year
The festival is one day. The Irish infrastructure of London is permanent: cultural centres, county associations, Gaelic games clubs, a weekly Irish press, and pubs that run traditional music sessions every week of the year.
For a visitor, that means the atmosphere you came for is available on a quiet Tuesday in Cricklewood as well as on a heaving Sunday in the West End, and it is a great deal more pleasant. West London and the north-western suburbs are where to look.
If the weather turns, which it often does in March, our guide to a rainy day in London has indoor alternatives within walking distance of Trafalgar Square. The day belongs to the same family of free, community-organised London street events as Lunar New Year in February and Pride in the summer, and our list of free things to do in London covers the quieter ones. For an Irish stout that has actually been looked after, London's historic pubs and its craft beer scene are both better bets than a green-lit chain bar.
Frequently asked questions
When is the St Patrick's Day parade in London in 2027?
Not yet announced. St Patrick's Day falls on Wednesday 17 March 2027, and London's festival is normally held on the Sunday closest to it, but the Mayor of London had not confirmed a date as of September 2026. The announcement usually appears on london.gov.uk in January or February.
Is the St Patrick's Day festival free?
Yes. The parade and everything in Trafalgar Square, including the main stage, the exhibitions and the children's workshops, are free and need no ticket. Only food, drink and stall purchases cost money.
Where does the parade start and finish?
In 2026 it started at Hyde Park at midday and followed Piccadilly, Piccadilly Circus, Regent Street St James's and Cockspur Street, passing Trafalgar Square and finishing on Whitehall. The route is confirmed each year with the date.
Is 17 March a public holiday in London?
No. St Patrick's Day is a public holiday in Ireland and Northern Ireland but not in England, so shops, offices, museums and transport in London run normally. The London festival is held on a Sunday instead, which is why it is rarely on 17 March.
Which pubs are best on St Patrick's Day?
The genuinely Irish pubs are mostly outside the West End, in Kilburn, Cricklewood, Camden Town, Archway and Hammersmith, where London's Irish community settled. Central London pubs will be decorated and extremely crowded. If you want traditional music rather than a crush, go north or west and go early.
Sources
- Greater London Authority - St Patrick's Festival 2026 (checked September 2026)
- Mayor of London - Announcement of the capital's St Patrick's Day celebrations (checked September 2026)
- Greater London Authority - St Patrick's Festival parade visual story (checked September 2026)
- GOV.UK - UK bank holidays (checked September 2026)
- Transport for London - Planned works and diversions (checked September 2026)