CHARLOTTE, N.C. — For Linda Dyer Hart and her husband, Frank Hart, the tricolor Ireland flag represents more than their Irish culture, it’s how they bring that culture to Charlotte every year.

But their personal flag won’t make a public appearance for the third year in a row.

What You Need To Know

  • Charlotte’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade was cancelled for 2022. It would have been the 25th such celebration

  • Parade founder Frank Hart is dedicating his time and energy to his battle with Parkinson’s disease

  • Frank and Linda Hart hope the tradition they started will continue

They decided to cancel this year's St. Patrick’s Day Parade, as Frank Hart battles Parkinson’s disease. St. Patrick's Day is celebrated March 17.

Now, their days are filled with exercise. Linda Hart said making it down wooden steps to their dock is an accomplishment. 

“He couldn’t even come down here a few months ago,” she said.

The disease affects the body's nervous system and cognitive functions. So, planning an event for 80,000 people was out of the question this year.

They say Frank Hart is the brains of the operation. 

“But with Parkinson’s hallucinations start, too,” Linda Hart said. “So, when you’re planning, and then he was seeing things — we’re like, this is scary!”

Sligo, Ireland, is where it all started. The husband and wife duo both have ancestors from there and learned about the St. Patrick’s Day traditions at a very young age.

“We’d have a big dinner, you know, on St. Patrick’s Day,” Linda Hart said. “And they would tell us about Irish history.”

What started as a handful of people with the Harts going from bar to bar on Tryon Street gained worldwide recognition — grabbing the attention of people all the way in Ireland. 

“Bus and transit workers in the city of Dublin called us and said we’re coming to Charlotte,” Linda Hart said.

She made them the grand marshals of the parade in 2007.

St. Patrick’s Day in Charlotte will look much different moving forward. So this year they're celebrating the joy they brought to people for the last 20-plus years.

“We had everyone — just everyone — and just to see the smile on people’s faces,” Linda Hart said. “That was the biggest thing.”

The Harts say they don’t know if the parade will return to what it once was, but they hope to pass the torch onto someone who cares about the tradition as much as they do.