American marching band takes Larne by surprise

A school band from South Carolina surprised shoppers in Larne on Wednesday.

160 members of the Clover High School band were supported by more than 100 teachers and parents as they paraded through the town centre and on to Inver Park.

The parade was part of the band’s preparations for St Patrick’s Day in Dublin.

However Larne wasn’t a just random choice.

The borough is officially twinned with Clover in South Carolina and the group wanted to use their trip to Ireland to learn more about the history of the County Antrim town.

Larne musician Billy Teare was delighted to see the band.

"I didn’t know anything about this until I saw a whole crowd of people. It’s great to see in Larne.

"They were playing Sousaphones which was amazing to see."

Others stepped out of work to watch as the parade made it's way along Larne's main street.

Sarah Robinson described the music as “incredible”.

“They were amazing," she said. "They were all completely in sync. Larne needs more things like that to bring people into town."

Stacey Hinton was also impressed.

"The amount of effort that would have taken and all the training that they must have put in to be so good.

"It was amazing."

Tracy Stiff from the Clover School District Board of Trustees said she was overwhelmed by the warm welcome in Larne.

"They were very warm and welcoming to all the students and other band members and directors that were with us.

"And it was wonderful to get to see the children of Larne and our clever high school band members co-ordinate and get together and talk and that kind of thing.

"And so it was really, really wonderful. They were very, very hospitable."

Rick Langdale, director of bands at Clover High School explained the connection between the towns.

“In 1996 our town of Clover was twinned with the town of Larne. The connection was because of the amount of immigrants that ended from Ulster over in South Carolina specifically in our parts.

"There have been delegations before from Clover to Larne and Larne to Clover but we've never had this large of a group of students.”

The band members are now looking forward to taking part in the St Patrick's Day parade in Dublin.

'It's very exciting," said Daniella Castaneda.

"There's a lot of people that are going to be there and I'm really excited to see how everything is going to be.

"And how Ireland celebrates St Patrick's Day."