Jenny Pacillo
Every March, something shifts in Worcester. Irish music drifts out of neighborhood pubs, families line Park Avenue, and for a few weeks, the city feels connected to something older and deeper than its everyday rhythms. It’s a season that belongs as much to history as it does to the present, a reminder that Worcester has long been a city shaped by Irish hands, Irish stories, and Irish spirit.
At the center of many of those traditions today is the Emerald Club of Worcester, and few people embody that connection more fully than Executive Board Member Caitlin Lubelczyk. For her, the annual celebrations aren’t just events on a calendar. They’re personal.
“I’ve always felt a deep connection to the Irish culture, the music, art, storytelling, humor, so whenever I have the chance to promote or be involved with something that honors that culture, I jump at the chance,” says Lubelczyk.
That connection started early. Lubelczyk grew up in a big Irish American family, tagging along with her father to concerts featuring acts like Maura O’Connell and Mary Black. As she got older, her father began bringing new Irish bands over for their first American tours, and those musicians would stay at their home, forming friendships that have lasted decades. “My dad goes to Ireland every year to visit friends that have become family,” she says, “and I’ve had the privilege of visiting several times too.”
That upbringing eventually blossomed into creative work of her own. In 2007 she co-founded the Irish band Fergus with her husband Tom and friend Brendan Keenan. Then in 2023, she launched the Worcester Irish Cultural Festival alongside GAA player Gareth McAlinden from Newry, Ireland, a celebration now heading into its fourth year this October.
But in March, all roads lead to the parade.
“The Worcester Saint Patrick’s Day Parade has been a meaningful part of my life for many years,” Lubelczyk says. She’s experienced it from nearly every angle, marching alongside her father when he served as Grand Marshal, performing atop a float with Fergus, and last year stepping into the broadcast booth as a television commentator for Spectrum. This year she’s back behind the mic, joining her father and Spectrum’s Cam Jandrow for what she calls “another memorable celebration.”
The parade is the centerpiece, but Worcester’s Irish cultural life runs deeper and longer than one day in March. Lubelczyk points to the Irish seisiúns held at Fiddlers’ Green and Boland’s Pub on alternating Sundays as the events that most authentically capture what Irish community actually feels like, live music, storytelling, and good pints in a setting that needs no special occasion to justify itself.
Beyond the music, the Worcester Fenians GAA Club works to keep the traditions of Gaelic football and hurling alive locally while competing at a high level nationally. And Ár dTeanga Féin, a volunteer driven organization founded in 1986, offers Irish language instruction from beginner through advanced levels, preserving the language itself throughout Central New England, because heritage lives most fully in the words people choose to keep.
Together these organizations form something rare: a living breathing cultural community rather than an annual performance.
For anyone curious about diving in, Lubelczyk’s advice is simple. “No matter which event you go to, the March Irish Festival, the Parade, after parade festivities, or Saint Patrick’s Day celebrations, you are sure to have a great time.”
In Worcester, March isn’t just a party. It’s a reminder of who built this city, and how they chose to remember where they came from.