Travel

Boston is the best city for celebrating St. Patrick’s Day, but enthusiasm for the holiday is higher in these 2 cities, site says

Boston's St. Patrick's Day Parade is on March 17.

By Kristi Palma

March 1, 2024

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Email
• Email
• 2

Boston is the absolute best city for celebrating St. Patrick’s Day, but we’re not the most enthusiastic about the holiday, according to a new ranking.

Say what?

The website celtictitles.com studied 100 major U.S. cities to determine their St. Patrick’s Day domination (or lack thereof), and while Boston topped the list, the city did not reign supreme in all aspects of the March holiday.

Four key metrics determined the most green cities (St. Patrick’s Day green, that is), and Boston ranked No. 1 in only one of them: prevalence of Irish heritage. For the other three metrics, local enthusiasm for the holiday, the highest number of events and parades, and the highest number of Irish pubs, Boston ranked third.

The cities with the most enthusiasm for St. Patrick’s Day were measured by the average search volume per capita for “St. Patrick’s Day parade” and “St. Patrick’s Day celebration” in March over the past four years. New Orleans ranked No. 1, and Buffalo, New York, ranked No. 2. If green attire, face paint, and leis were the criteria, we might have crushed it. Just saying.

Boston was beat out by Chicago and New York in the categories of highest number of events and parades and highest number of Irish pubs — Chicago topped the former list and New York topped the latter. The events were found on Google, and the pubs were based on Yelp listings, according to the site.

But, alas, Boston’s overall score out of 100 was 96.55, while second place New York’s was 81.71 and third place Chicago’s was 81.41. And Chicago and New York ranked even lower in enthusiasm for the holiday than us: No. 13 and 17, respectively.

Check out the celtictitles.com study.

This year’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade in South Boston will take place on March 17. Discover other ways to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day in Boston, including catching the Dropkick Murphys during Boston shows March 14-17.