By Tom deignan

NEW Yorkers who are not Irish still typically manage to have a good time on St. Patrick’s Day. They listen to Irish tunes, read an Irish history book, and maybe, just maybe, wander into a pub somewhere.

However, you would have to forgive some people if they’ve had enough of the big parade down Fifth Avenue.

You could almost hear people saying, “It’s a wonder those damn Irish get a parade started, much less finished, every stinking year.”

That’s because, once again, the “who can and can’t march” debate has arisen.

Well, if it’s any comfort, you should know that the Irish have had trouble throwing a non-controversial parade for over two centuries now.

Last week, newly elected City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, a proud Irish American as well as a lesbian, kicked over a (by now) decade-old hornet’s nest. She said she is hoping to come up with an agreement which might finally let gays and lesbians march under their own banner at the St. Patrick’s Day Parade.

“As a proud Irish American lesbian, I certainly hope to be able to march in this year’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade with the Irish LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) community in a way that allows us to openly celebrate our heritage and identity,” Quinn told reporters.

Of course, the AOH, which runs the parade, won a federal court case back in 1993 which upheld their right to exclude gays because the parade is, essentially, a private event.

The Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform has also been told it cannot march under its own banner this year.

Meanwhile, there is still a blanket ban preventing a number of Irish American firefighters from wearing berets which have historic and heartfelt meaning at Engine 60/Ladder 17 in the south Bronx.

The issue of whether or not pro-abortion or pro-gay politicians should march is also often the topic of heated debate.

Yes, in the end, the parade draws millions and most have a grand old time.

Still, it’s tempting to look at all this and grow tired of the acrimony and discord and wonder what the heck all of this has to do with being Irish.

But it turns out “Fighting Irish” is more than a stereotype. For example, since this April will mark the 90th anniversary of the Easter Rising in Dublin, I thumbed through a few books to see if that played any role in how the 1916 or 1917 parade unfolded.

It didn’t. But what did split New York’s Irish American community those years was a decision to build an Irish social center at 116th Street, rather than 47th Street, in Manhattan.

The decision was a bad one, leading to big debts, the suspension of a Hibernian county board and ultimately two factions claiming they had the right to run the big Fifth Avenue parade.

Like the AOH and the gays and lesbians, all involved had to go to court before the 1916 parade, according to author John T. Ridge.

The following March it was not the brave rebels who stormed the Dublin GPO in April of 1916 who got tongues wagging but, again, which Irish faction in New York City would control the parade and which would sit out the march entirely.

Politics and petty squabbles, religion and rebellion. All of them, at one time or another, have played a role in how the Irish marched in the New York parade.

By the 1920s, events in Ireland did eventually spill out onto Fifth Avenue. During the Irish Civil War years, many groups boycotted the parade because they felt it was not sufficiently nationalistic or anti-British.

The 1800s were not exactly the good old days either. True, anti-Irish bigots often pointed to the parade as a sign that the Irish were “taking over,” and that their raucous behavior was ruining America.

But Irish Catholics themselves were often heard to say that a parade was not an appropriate way to celebrate a religious holiday.

Meanwhile, in 1858, the Irish could not settle their arguments so two simultaneous parades were held, one right after the other, even if you could not tell where one ended and another began.

What does this all this tell you? Who knows? But it does make it tough to bemoan those tacky old stereotypes about the Fighting Irish.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day.

(Contact Sidewalks at tomdeignan@earthlink.net.)