Ireland Tourism brings animated fun to St Patrick’s Day celebrations with online parade

LEAPING leprechauns! Ireland Tourism is celebrating St Patrick’s Day with a parade that everyone can join in.

The Ireland Tourism site wants people to build their own online St Patrick’s Day float.

LEAPING leprechauns! Ireland Tourism is celebrating St Patrick’s Day with a parade that everyone can join in.

Visitors to its website are being asked to create a float in the online Fantastic St Patrick’s Parade, with plenty of shamrocks, Guinness and rainbows with pots of gold to go round.

The aim of the game is to get “likes” on Facebook, with the 20 top entries going into a prize draw to win two holidays to the Emerald Isle.

Once a float is in the parade, it can collect “likes” on Facebook.

Or, you could just sit back and watch the animated parade.

Ireland Tourism’s website acknowledges that New York was once seen has having the best St Patrick’s Day parade in the world, but claims Dublin has now claimed its rightful place at the head of the March 17 celebrations.

And if you can’t get there, it offers some traditional Irish recipes, including colcannon and Irish stew, so you can celebrate at home.

The website allows you to build your own float and add your photo to the character on board.