Belmar and Lake Como hosted its 50th annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade Sunday – and the weather could not have been more cooperative.

Fifty years in the making, each parade has boasted a larger, more energetic crowd than the year before. It was exactly what the parade creators hoped for back in the 1970s.

"A couple of local businessmen got together and said we have a dead season where nothing is happening and it gets really bleak and grey in March at the Jersey Shore," explained parade chairman Ed Donovan.

The area is known as the "Irish Riviera" due to its substantial Irish population.

"It's also a great event to get people together," said Monmouth County Commissioner Sue Kiley.

The event was also about making memories with family as well.

"I get to play one of my favorite instruments next to my grandfather," said 6-year-old Liam Hill, who helped lead off the parade with his grandfather, Bob Hill, of the Union County Police and Fire Pipes and Drums. Bob Hill gifted his grandson a full set of bagpipes for this year's parade.

"It's a memory on a special day that'll you'll never forget and hopefully he doesn't either," Bob Hill said.

With nearly 180 groups participating in the march, the area saw an upwards of about 50,000 people.

Full parade details can be found here.