Lisbon celebrates St Patrick’s Day with traditional bagpipe parade

Around twenty Portuguese and Spanish folk bagpipe groups gathered to bring the St Patrick’s Day celebrations to a close on Saturday. Around 500 bagpipers paraded through Lisbon’s historic centre, watched by thousands of delighted spectators who had come to see the musical procession.

The bagpipe, an instrument of Celtic origin, features prominently in the traditional and folk culture of the Iberian Peninsula, particularly in the Spanish regions of Galicia, Asturias and León, as well as in northern Portugal.