Plenty of ways to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day around Clark County

Editor’s note: The events in this story were canceled after the story published. The Liberty and Kiggins theaters are holding their showings but all other events have been canceled as of noon March 13.  Many events are being cancelled due to the COVID-19 outbreak. We will update columbian.com as we get information. Please check columbian.com/canceled-events-coronavirus or event websites for more cancellations. 

Who says Clark County isn’t green as green can be? Just take a look at this rich lineup of emerald festivities and Scotch-Irish entertainment, which is about as overstuffed as any magical pot of gold.

St. Patrick’s Day always sparks celebration in Clark County, but this time around the holiday’s date happens to fall on Tuesday, not during the weekend. That’s no lack of Irish luck. It just means you can devote several extra days of spring training to your green-beer elbow hoist and choruses of “Danny Boy” and “Finnegan’s Wake.” Your skills should be nicely honed in time for the big day itself.

The 29th annual downtown Paddy Hough Parade is set to launch at 12:30 p.m. March 17 from Hough Elementary School. The parade heads north and east, then comes down Vancouver’s Main Street. Every Hough student is a parade marcher, and with good reason. The school and neighborhood were both named for Emerald Isle native Patrick Hough, who moved here in 1883 and became a beloved schoolteacher and associate superintendent of schools.

The Fort Vancouver Pipe Band will provide authentic Scotch-Irish parade music, then return downtown that evening to provide pre-movie music at the Kiggins Theatre. Once they quiet down, what’s playing is “The Quiet Man,” a lighthearted romantic comedy from 1952 that stars John Wayne, Maureen O’Hara and a truly glittering Irish countryside.(That’s no exaggeration; the gorgeous film won an Academy Award for cinematography as well as John Ford’s direction.)

Barnstorming band

On March 14 the Vancouver Firefighters Pipes & Drums will barnstorm pubs and restaurants in Ridgefield and Battle Ground. On March 17 they’ll do the same across Vancouver, with one jaunt up to a new, appropriately named Felida establishment: Mahoney’s Public House. You could try following your ears to track down the band of kilted crusaders, given that they’re powered by pipes that famously call from glen to glen and down the mountainside. Or just check our detailed schedule.

For fresher, funkier takes on hallowed Scotch-Irish tradition, try our local Liberties this weekend. The Old Liberty Theater in Ridgefield welcomes back St. James Gate, a rousing contemporary Celtic-Irish band, for two shows March 14; the Liberty Theatre in Camas offers a March 15 matinee screening of the new “Riverdance 25th Anniversary Show,” which updates the beloved, leggy extravaganza with new costumes and scenes and a state-of-the-art soundtrack.

Green enough for you yet? The festivities all wrap up on March 18 with Clark County’s Green Awards for businesses, nonprofits and neighbors — recognizing the kind of cutting-edge greenness that might just rescue this planet.