Norwich - Temperatures reached the 40s and icy sidewalks started to melt as the bagpipes sounded Sunday to launch the second annual St. Patrick's Day Parade and Festival in the city's downtown.

Spectators wearing bright green clothes, beads, hats, sparkly scarves and feathers to erase images of white and brown gritty snowbanks that still marked some downtown spots.

A block from the parade route, vendors advertised their wares with the aromas of hot dogs, brick oven pizza, kettle corn and, of course, corned beef and cabbage.

"It's great," Jennie Worsman of Norwich said. "This is our first time here. It is nice to get out of the house."

Worsman, her two children and their friend sported green beads, hats and feathers for the festive occasion, some bought Saturday at Target and others that have been stored away from past Irish festivals.

"I'm glad they are getting to share part of my Irish heritage," Worsman said.

Worsman's daughter, 8-year-old Olivia Provost and her friend, Grace Bush, 9, loved the idea that Irish men got to wear skirts. Olivia's brother, Timmy, 5, however, said he was not about to try it.

Marchers wearing kilts, including members of the New London Firefighters Pipes and Drums, were a big hit during and after the parade, drawing cheers and compliments as they marched by in colorful full dress uniforms. Afterward, individual members posed for pictures with spectators along Main Street.

One parade spectator named Clancy drew as much attention as some parade participants. Clancy, a 2-year-old Irish wolfhound owned by AJ Wojtcuk of Lisbon, has come to the parade both years.

Wojtcuk said he is a bit spooked by the loud drums and bagpipes, but is otherwise gentle and calm in the boisterous atmosphere, where parents asked if their children could pet him and peppered Wojtcuk with questions.

Clancy received more than one invitation to march in the parade next year, and Wojtcuk said he would consider it depending on his schedule.

The parade was not without local and national celebrities of sorts. Near the front, Connecticut Lt. Gov. Nancy Wyman marched with Norwich Mayor Deberey Hinchey, members of the Norwich City Council and U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., state Sen. Cathy Osten, D-Sprague, and state Reps. Doug Dubitsky, R-Chaplin and Emmett Riley, D-Norwich. Editor's note: This corrects an earlier version of this paragraph.

Later, a politician from a different era greeted spectators and paused for photos. Abraham Lincoln, portrayed by Lincoln re-enactor Lewis Dube, and Mary Todd Lincoln, played by Carol Deleppo, marked the anniversary of Lincoln's March 1860 campaign stump in Norwich.

The Lincoln Forum of Eastern Connecticut hosted a reception for Lincoln at the Wauregan Ballroom after the parade, where the Lincolns greeted some 60 people - many still wearing bright green shamrock décor - before Lincoln/Dube read the 16th president's Second Inaugural Address, with its famous concluding paragraph:

"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."

c.bessette@theday.com

Twitter: @Bessettetheday