Cead Mile Failte!
One Hundred Thousand Welcomes!
Welcome to the home page of the Irish American Club of Kalamazoo!
The Irish American Club of Kalamazoo is a non-profit 501 [c] [3] organization that is the proud sponsor of the annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade in downtown Kalamazoo and the annual Kalamazoo Irish Festival.
Downtown Kalamazoo – St. Patrick’s Day Parade
The club is happy to announce that our 22nd annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade took place on Saturday, March 16 and our Grand Marshal this year was Mayor David Anderson. The parade stepped off at 11:00 am on S. Burdick street and followed our usual route down to Cedar street. We are now accepting applications to participate and are looking for sponsors to help defray our costs for next year’s parade. If you are interested please contact us at margarets74@gmail.com
Friends of the 2024 Parade
Elaine Biddle, Kalamazoo Pipe Band, LaFontaine Automotive Group, Sean McCann, Julie Rogers, Sons of Norway, Willis Law and Visiting Angels of SW Michigan.
Hooley for Healing – Please plan to join us on March 16th after the parade at Rugger’s Up & Under in honor of Betsy Valentine and Sara Dawson
A Hooley is an Irish Party. On Saturday, March 16th after the parade we had a Hooley and fund raiser for Sara Dawson and Betsy Valentine, 2 local women dealing with cancer and their related costs. The owners of Rugger’s Up & Under opened their doors early just for us and we had about 425 people come to party with us and helped us to raise over $15,000.00 through their generous donations and aggressive bidding of 40 different great items in our silent auction. We had music from Curt Tramel and Simone Irish, step dancers from the Quinn School of Irish Dance, a kilt contest, and some kid’s games and prizes, and some special menu items and drink specials. Overall a resounding success and we’re already looking forward to doing it again next year after the parade on March 15th . We hope you will join us and help us do this all over again.
Next Club Meeting – Thursday, December 5th – Old Burdick’s Bar & Grill West – 5076 Sports Dr. East off 9th St. North of I-94. Please join us and check out our new meeting place. Happy Hour from 4-6, half off appetizers and draft beers. Thursday is wine & wings night, half off all night.
Come early and take advantage of Happy Hour. Meeting will start at 6:30 with entertainment to follow at 7:00.
T SHIRTS – We have some 20th anniversary special edition T shirts left over from the festival for sale for $20.00. If you are interested, please contact us and we’ll make arrangements to get 1 to you.
See Our Events Page for More Upcoming events!
