"Two, four, six, eight, how do you know St Patrick's straight?" yelled the gay rights activists, angry at their exclusion from the New York St Patrick's Day parade.
It was the ninth annual picket by the Irish Gay and Lesbian Organisation in protest at the Ancient Order of Hibernians' ban on their participation. "We're Irish, we're queer, we'll be here every year," was chanted by some 200 demonstrators to the accompaniment of a jazz band turned out in green hats and shamrock.
Some placards were more political: "Twelfth July, 17th March - same bigots, different sashes", and "Brits out of Ireland, Bigotry out of the Parade".
The New York Police Department moved to arrest the demonstrators. "Shame, Shame," shouted their supporters as around 20 men and women were driven away in police vans.
The St Patrick's Day parade in New York is the largest annual parade in the world. It's overwhelming, with one million people either marching or lining the route. Fifth Avenue was an ocean of Irishness. Tricolours flew from every other skyscraper as bands marched by.
The grand marshal leading this year's parade was Irish film star Maureen O'Hara, who is 78. "She's a fine figure of a girl," said Mr Jack O'Donnell from New Jersey.
Everyone in New York seemed to be sporting shamrock or wearing green. Blacks, Hispanics and Chinese selling Tricolours along Fifth Avenue wore hats saying: "On St Patrick's Day I'm Irish".
The parade was a very militaristic affair but it was a display of state force only. Phalanx after phalanx of men passed in uniforms: mounted police officers, fire-fighters, paratroopers and Irish members of the US army carrying rifles. "No decommissioning here," remarked a Derry man.
However, the unsung heroes of the parade were the city's sanitation workers who trailed the horses with bins.
Ms Patti Page and Ms Carole Harper, both from New Jersey, watched the parade from the steps of St Patrick's Cathedral, which is reserved for dignitaries. With shamrock glasses and green tinsel over their fur coats, they rang all their friends from their mobile phones to say where they were. "I've no Irish blood but I'd rather work Christmas than St Patrick's Day," said Carole.
Thousands of people from Belfast travelled over for the parade. "I wish my mother was here to see this," said Mr Brendy Murray, a taxi driver from the Falls. "I'm bringing her back a New York ashtray as a souvenir. She doesn't smoke but she can polish it."
His friend, Mr Paddy McLoughlin, thought there was nowhere like New York on St Patrick's Day. "The parade is brilliant and our hotel is great. We've three toilets, three TVs and a verandas where you could play five-a-side football."
Another group of Belfast men, wearing Tricolour wigs and bow ties, refused to let a press photographer take their picture. "We're on the dole but we're working and it wouldn't look too good if the social security people saw photos of us in New York," said one.
