Organisers of the St. Patrick’s Day parade in Enniskillen are making a final call for more community involvement to save this year’s comeback event.

Project St. Patrick – a small voluntary team responsible for the organisation of the St. Patrick’s Day parade in Enniskillen – put out a call-out for expressions of interest last week for this year’s ‘Back To You in 22’ parade, with a deadline of Monday, January 31.

Although the Project St. Patrick committee has reported “encouraging interest” from across Fermanagh in taking part in the county parade on St. Patrick’s Day, they need “much more” in order to “do it justice”.

“For that reason we have decided to give ourselves another few days to contact previous participants directly in order to give this year’s scaled-back parade a fighting chance of actually taking place,” a spokesperson for Project St. Patrick told The Impartial Reporter yesterday, Wednesday, February 2.

Aware that time is not on their side, Project St. Patrick are calling on schools, groups, clubs and bands to get in touch as soon as possible, with the final deadline for expressions of interest extended to 5pm next Monday, February 7.

“We hope that clubs and bands etc. yet to get in touch might take this up as a challenge to get back together after such a long period of restrictions.

“We will decide on Monday evening if we feel we have enough content to keep spectators entertained, especially as the Fun Day element which has become such a massive part of Project St. Patrick cannot take place at the Broadmeadow,” said the spokesperson, noting that popular, though limited, attractions such as the Party Bees, Big Top and Jurassic Loc-Down will be at Enniskillen Castle courtesy of Experience Enniskillen.

“So really, this a final call to save even the reduced St. Patrick’s Day Parade for 2022 in Enniskillen – please do get in touch to chat about funding opportunities and logistics either at any of our social media accounts, or by emailing feargalshannon1@yahoo.co.uk before Monday at 5pm,” the Project St. Patrick spokesperson told this newspaper.