Mr Michael Colgan, chairman of the St Patrick's Festival, chortles at the memory of how embarrassingly awful it was, the tired old parade that wound its way through Dublin's streets every March 17th.
"I remember this perennial Viking wearing the ma's sheepskin rug with a bit of twine around his neck and a colander on his head with two carrots sticking out of it. Or Miss DID Electrical, draped across a load of fridges and tumble dryers, with goose pimples all over her. And then, there was good old Abel Alarms . . . "
Nearly everyone remembers the crass commercial floats, the blue-kneed American majorettes and the long delays which turned the parade into a virtual queue because nearly every band insisted on performing for several minutes in front of the reviewing stand in O'Connell Street. It was not a great day out.
The first serious critique of the old-style parade came in 1992 from the UCD Architectural Graduates' Association. They described it as "a collection of separate elements strung together along the streets . . . sadly lacking in entertainment value, in imagination and in design".
Ms Yvonne Farrell, the association's then president, said the parade "could be two hours of living art". But for this to happen, it would need to be treated as a production, like other performance art.
The initial response was not encouraging. Mr Frank Magee, chief executive of Dublin Tourism, organiser of the old parade, said its function was "to promote Dublin as a tourist destination, not necessarily to entertain the people of Dublin". Having an artistic director to organise it was "a pie-in-the-sky idea".
He also responded at the time to complaints that the parade was undergoing Disneyfication and did not reflect Irish culture. "Aspects of Irish culture and heritage are already incorporated. Finglas, for example, do Cuchulainn every year with an Irish wolfhound," he said.
Yesterday, Mr Magee said "the money just wasn't there" years earlier. But Mr Colgan said the approach had changed too. "His philosophy was to do something that brings in tourism. My philosophy is that you get the show right for Dublin and then the tourists will come anyway."
This view was accepted in 1995 when Mr Enda Kenny, then Minister for Tourism, appointed the Gate Theatre's director as chairman of a committee that would reinvent the St Patrick's Day parade. Yesterday's marvellous spectacle was the fourth - and the best - of this new series.
It is also the centrepiece of a much larger festival that started last Saturday night with the unforgettable fireworks display over the Custom House and continued with street theatre, open-air performances from various stages and more fireworks over St Stephen's Green on Tuesday night.
Mr Colgan sees no reason why Ireland, as "the only country in the world that owns a colour", should not capitalise on St Patrick's Day by staging every year on the River Liffey the best fireworks display anywhere in the world. "Because we've now got the money and the chutzpah to do it," he said.
Meanwhile, the grand civic thoroughfare linking St Patrick's Cathedral with Parnell Square was filled for two hours yesterday by the performers and the most extraordinary array of colour, energy and talent, much of it home-produced, and by the thousands who flocked to see it. Although it felt like the hottest St Patrick's Day ever, it was not quite as warm as it was back in 1972 when the temperature reached 18.1 Celsius. It hit 17.2C yesterday.
The parade still has its longueurs: some of the Irish marching bands could be carbon copies of those from US high schools, the choreography of the various community groups could be a lot better; most of it still isn't anything as good as the colourful "bicycle ballet" staged by the Dublin Cycling Campaign.
Ms Marie Claire Sweeney, executive director of the festival, rejects any notion that the parade rehashes imported ideas from Barcelona or Rio de Janeiro. "All around the country, community groups have been working hard to produce this, interpreting whatever themes they like."
An old-fashioned American-style parade has been transformed into something European. It is no accident that Macnas, the Galway group which revived street theatre in Ireland, is among the prime movers and that Els Comediants of Barcelona is also involved.
It was obvious from the event that participants - all staging pageants loosely based on this year's "Saints and Scholars" theme - are also taking their inspiration from the rich European tradition of street theatre.
Like Macnas itself, the parade's strongest, most colourful elements set out to "reclaim and recreate the old pre-Christian communal celebrations". The Americans are still there, mainly with their high school bands, which once seemed almost exotic.
In a sense, the St Patrick's Day parade is a metaphor for how Dublin - how Ireland - has become more confident and vibrant. Seven years ago, Yvonne Farrell imagined how it could be. And though it has taken time, we are all now reaping the reward of the seed that she sowed.
Oh, by the way. There was an Irish wolfhound in yesterday's parade. St Patrick got a look in too.