Tom Finnigan (Enterprise file photo — Peter Crowley)

SARANAC LAKE — The 10th annual Saranac Lake St. Patrick’s Day parade is Saturday, amid a weekend of celebrations of Irish tradition, culture and local families.

Saranac Lake native Tom Finnigan was selected as this year’s grand marshal. He will lead the parade, which is organized by the Saranac Lake Irish Gaelic Organization.

“As the parade travels up Main Street on Saturday with Finnigan at its head, it will pass the downtown storefront that still bears his name — a purveyor of more than a few fine linen dress shirts over the past century, with a familial connection to the bygone flax and linen markets of Dunmanway and County Cork,” SLIGO spokesman Matt Scollin wrote in a news release.

Finnigan was born in Saranac Lake, where he owned and operated the menswear and specialty store T.F. Finnigan’s for 35 years. Both the name and the business predate him.

“I was very, very surprised,” Finnigan said in a statement. “I was shocked, and I’m not much in the public eye, but I said ‘yes.’ Saint Patrick’s Day is a celebration of our heritage.”

He is Thomas F. Finnigan III, but he believes the name may go back six or seven generations.

“My son, Tom, who lives in California, is the fourth, but could actually be fifth or sixth generation, making my grandson the fifth — or the sixth or seventh,” Finnigan said.

“The Finnigans trace their roots — and the generational naming discrepancy — back to the town of Dunmanway, Ireland, in County Cork,” Scollin wrote.

Dunmanway was a market town founded in the 1700s whose early growth was rooted in cultivating flax, weaving and the Irish linen industry.

“In 1827, free market economic policies in England ended protective duties on Irish linen,” Scollin wrote.

In 1830, Finnigan’s ancestors immigrated to either Canada or Boston and settled in the St. Lawrence Valley, holding a multitude of jobs. Finnigan still has tales of work life in early America.

“The story goes that one of my relatives worked for the railroad and, from time to time, trains would go off the tracks,” he said. “It was his job to write up incident reports for the railroad company, and his supervisor told him at one point that the reports he was submitting were too long and detailed. To shorten them up, this relative of mine began telegraphing reports that simply read ‘Off again, on again, gone again, Finnigan.'”

The Finnigans arrived in Saranac Lake in 1915 when his grandfather moved here and opened T.F. Finnigan’s at 79 Main St., where the clothing store still operates today.

“Altogether the store with its attractive front and fine interior has the air of a metropolitan establishment,” according to the Lake Placid News when the store opened in 1923.

Finnegan III graduated from Middlebury College after high school, completed a graduate degree at St. Lawrence University and moved back to Saranac Lake. His wife Lorraine began teaching here, so he joined the family business and ended up running the store. He sold the store to the Williams brothers in 2018.

“Working there, I got to meet people from all over the country and the world,” Finnegan said. “I also worked as an adjunct professor at North Country Community College, teaching psychology in state and federal prisons.”

Finnigan was also a certified alpine ski coach, deeply involved in ski racing at the college and national levels, and is a member of the Saranac Lake High School Athletic Hall of Fame. He and Lorraine raised two children in Saranac Lake — Tom and Kimberly — both of whom inherited his passion for alpine skiing.

“This is one of my favorite things to do every year,” Scollin said of writing family biographies on the parade grand marshals, “because you learn so much about these folks.”

The parade’s grand marshal is selected each year by a vote of its living former grand marshals: Mike Ryan, Howard Riley, Ray Scollin, John Muldowney, Pat Finn, Ron Keough, Dennis Dwyer and Kelly Morgan-Duprey.

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Other events

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The celebration will kick off at 6 pm. Friday with a cocktail reception in the Hotel Saranac’s Great Hall.

The Hotel Saranac’s Great Hall currently has a public exhibit on the history of Irish soldiers in the American Revolution on loan from the Irish American Heritage Museum in Albany. The exhibit will be open to the public through the weekend.

“As much as one-third of the Continental Army was composed of soldiers of Irish descent, with at least 16 of the army’s generals being Irish born,” according to the museum website. “The American Revolution inspired both France and Ireland in their own pursuits of freedom and Wolfe Tone credited George Washington with inspiring his United Ireland movement.”

The Blue Moon Cafe will serve a traditional Irish breakfast, beginning Saturday at 8 a.m.

The parade will step off at 1 p.m. sharp on Saturday. The route begins at the Saranac Lake Post Office and ends at the Harrietstown Town Hall. The parade will line up on Olive St., next to the post office, beginning at 12:15 p.m.

Throughout the parade, local families, or “clans” will be marching under the banners of their family crests in the “Calling of the Clans.”

“The O’Ramblers” is a special clan open to anyone wanting to march on Saturday but lacking a clan of their own.

The parade will also include floats, marchers and dancers from the VFW Post 3357 color guard, the Saranac Lake Winter Carnival king and queen, the Lawn Chair Ladies, Soma Beats, the Champlain Valley Irish Dancers, the Girl Scouts of Northeastern New York and the Saranac Lake Volunteer Fire Department.

Immediately following the parade, SLIGO will host a short ceremony in the Harrietstown Town Hall auditorium.

Father Martin Cline of St. Bernard’s Church will give an Irish blessing. The Champlain Valley Irish Dancers will perform their fleet-footed, high-kicking, rhythmic dance.

Awards will be presented to parade participants for the following categories: farthest traveled marcher, youngest marcher, oldest marcher, largest clan, best dressed lad (boy), best dressed cailn (girl), and the coveted “Shenanigans” award honoring the clan that succeeded in causing the most good-natured mischief on the parade route.

New this year, live Irish music will be on the menu at Bitters & Bones following the parade and town hall ceremony from 3 to 6 p.m. Curragh, a traditional Irish acoustic band from Albany, will play downstairs at the brewery, supported by grant funding through the Franklin County Government Office of Economic Development & Tourism. Curragh has been playing jigs and reels on bouzoukis, fiddles, uilleann pipes, flutes, whistles, guitars, concertinas, accordions and vocals for nearly 40 years.

This year’s festivities are supported by a $1,000 contribution through the American-Irish Legislators Society of New York which was secured by North Country Assemblyman Billy Jones, D-Chateaugay Lake. Jones is a member of AILSNY.

“I’ve enjoyed marching in Saranac Lake’s St. Patrick’s Day parade many times over the years, and I’m proud to support all the great events that SLIGO puts on in the name of Irish heritage,” Jones said in a statement.

Business sponsorships are still available for $100 each and include social media exposure, listing on an event sponsors’ banner and a commemorative SLIGO flag. Contact Ray Scollin at rscollin@roadrunner.com or John Muldowney at johnmuldowney11@gmail.com for sponsorship inquiries.

This year’s events are also supported by the Village of Saranac Lake and the Regional Office of Sustainable Tourism.

Saranac Lake’s St. Patrick’s Day parade and festivities are planned by SLIGO, a group of residents dedicated to community service and the promotion and celebration of Irish and Irish-American history. Membership is open to all, regardless of heritage or religion.