DALLAS (KDAF) — The 42nd Dallas St. Patrick’s Day Parade was a success, as always, but how did this event get started? Inside DFW gets those answers.

Inside DFW sat down with Tommy Donahue on the Board of Directors for the St. Patrick’s Day Parade, and found out about the first St. Patrick’s Day Parade he went to in Dallas on Greenville Avenue.

“I was home from college on spring break and just happened to be on the lower part of Greenville. And all of a sudden, everybody in the bar kind of walked out on the street for about 10 to 15 minutes. This little tiny parade went by a couple of pickup trucks and beer trucks and a couple of convertibles with a City Council and everybody kind of hooted and hollered for a few minutes and went back into bars are drinking again,” said Donahue.

According to Donahue, Dallas’ first parade was in 1979. His bar, Milo Butterfingers, became involved with the parade for another 15 to 20 years. He got a pickup truck and joined the parade. Eventually, people in the lower part of Greenville became frustrated with the parade’s aftermath and had to postpone it.

The following year, the team got a permit and started planning for the parade we all know today. In 1989, the parade took off from there and hasn’t stopped since.