Members of the Saint Anselm College Irish Club joined forces with members of the Red Key Society this month to create the annual Irish Club float in the Manchester Saint Patrick’s Parade March 26.

The float, designed to fit into the parade’s general theme, saluting mental health workers and programs in New Hampshire, depicted Anglo-Irish writer Jonathan Swift and his 1726 novel, Gulliver’s Travels. Some literary scholars claim that Gulliver’s Travels is one of the earliest novels exploring the psychological problems of the human brain. Swift himself helped establish Saint Patrick’s Hospital in Dublin, one of the first facilities to provide care for the mentally ill in the English-speaking world.

The float depicted an open book with Lemuel Gulliver, the title character stepping out of the pages only to be captured by the Lilliputians, the pint-sized human beings he discovered on his voyage who proceeded to capture and bind him. The 12-foot image of Gulliver, according Hope McCarthy, ’17, Irish Club president and a mathematics major, was tied up with rope held by several  students.

In addition, another student wore a horse head to depict the Houyhnhnms, highly intelligent horses whose country is another place visited by Gulliver. The Houyhnhnm-headed student carried a sign expressing thanks to the Rev. Thomas G. Kass, C.S.V., who taught 18th Century literature for nearly 20 years in the Department of English and who died March 13. Father Kass took particular delight in Gulliver’s Travels and the Houyhnhnms.

Kevin Brooker, owner of East Coast Towing in Hooksett, provided the truck and drove – as he and his father have done for many years for the Irish Club. The club first entered the Saint Patrick’s Parade, which is now held toward the end of March in an effort to avoid competition with major parades in Boston and Holyoke, MA, and to coincide with somewhat milder early spring temperatures.

Members of the Red Key who helped the club in painting and organizing the float and in marching in the parade were Jonathan Sheedy, ’17, a physics and computer science major and president of the Red Key; Jon Gooding, ’18, a business major; Ryan Kearns, ’17, a business and finance major; Brian Kavanagh, ’18, a finance major; and Cooper Roy, ’19, a business and finance major.

The club received some much needed advice and help from the wood shop staff in the Physical Plant department, and space to assemble the float from the grounds crew in Fr. Jude Hall, said Fr. Jerome Day, O.S.B., Irish Club adviser and assistant professor of English, who joined the students in the parade. The Irish Club has participated in the parade every year since 1996.