Latin rhythms, Brazilian dancers and jugglers gave a Mardi Gras tone to the Belfast St Patrick's Day parade. But the day was primarily for children from local community groups to display the costumes they had completed in art workshops throughout the city.
It was only the second year a St Patrick's Day parade took place in Belfast, and it drew thousands of people into the city centre for a vibrant and colourful celebration under blue skies.
Floats and marchers toured their local areas in the north, south, east and west of the city before making their way to the centre to parade past a stage outside City Hall. The crowd at City Hall observed a minute's silence for the murdered solicitor, Ms Rosemary Nelson.
The theme for the parade was "Earth, Fire and Wind" and the children were dressed as fish, fairies, snakes, swans, trolls and trees. The sound of salsa, reggae, rock and traditional Irish music filled the city streets.
On the Falls Road in west Belfast, people poured on to the streets to soak up the atmosphere. Tricolours were waved, but also visible were the official blue parade flags bearing four languages. There was a discreet RUC presence, with two Land-Rovers closing the road to traffic.
Black taxis emblazoned with shamrocks and balloons led the west Belfast parade, which also featured a gay and lesbian organisation and Gaelic youth teams.
Marchers from the Lower Ormeau Road paraded around their locality before boarding buses for the short journey to the city centre. The residents travelled by bus to avoid marching past the loyalist Donegall Pass area.
Around City Hall there was a sea of every shade of green. Ice-cream vans did a roaring trade in the spring sunshine. "Let's all enjoy our St Patrick's Day," the compere commanded.
Ms Catriona Ruane, chairwoman of the carnival, directed the local parades into the city centre. She recently spearheaded a drive to raise £50,000 in six weeks after Belfast City Council withdrew its grant for the event.
Funding from businesses around the city and the Belfast European Partnership Board enabled the event to proceed after disagreement at council meetings last month on what flags and emblems would be flown.
Mr Nigel Dodds, of the Democratic Unionist Party, said yesterday that the event would do nothing for reconciliation between the two communities.
Ms Ruane said the parade was a multi-cultural event. "We have very stringent guidelines. There are no party political banners, no militaristic bands, and we have designed our own carnival flag printed in four languages - Irish, English, Ulster Scots and Chinese."
The carnival committee is already planning to make next year's millennium St Patrick's Day parade "the biggest and best event this city has ever seen".