BATON ROUGE - The 40th Wearin’ of the Green parade rolls on Saturday.

The parade started as an idea by its founder, Pat Shingleton, to bring back the city's Irish Club. Now, 40 years later, it's one of the largest parades in a state known for its elaborate parades.

"I said to my brother Kevin, 'I think I'm going to resurrect the Irish Club of Baton Rouge and start a St. Patrick's Day parade,'" Shingleton said.

When the first Wearin' of the Green Parade hit the streets in 1986, it was originally planned as a walking parade. Over the years, it grew to include antique cars, twirlers, bands and now floats.

"We got together at Zee Zee's, had a nice breakfast, as they say, a full Irish breakfast. Then we went up to the golf course and we walked back down. There were a couple of convertibles, we were coming down the street and the traffic was going the other way. So that's how it began,” Shingleton said. "It continued to grow and grow and we weren't getting much exposure to it so we would have these posters that identified the parade and we were stapling them to the telephone poles along the route."

Now, in 2025, streets are flooded with people from around the capital region and beyond to celebrate St. Patrick's Day. 

Shingleton said he never thought it would become something so grand.

"I never knew it, I never embraced that, I think that as it continued to grow we were finding ways to continue to protect it," Shingleton said. "You know it's just a great great day, it's a fun day. My daughter, when she was growing up, said, ‘Pa this is better than Christmas day.' And that's what we want it to be."

Over the last four decades, the parade was only absent once due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

"Spanish Town rolled two weeks later we couldn't," Shingleton said.

This parade has become one of the proudest traditions for the Shingleton family. 

"I'm 74. I told my kids I only have 26 parades left, so I still think by the time I'm 100, I'll be standing there, leaning on a shillelagh (a wooden walking stick), having a pint and maybe my grandkids will be holding me up," Shingleton said.

The Wearin’ of the Green Parade is Saturday.

If you can't make it to the parade, watch WBRZ starting at 9:30 a.m. for live coverage straight from the parade route.