SLIPPERY ROCK — As professional bucket lists go, Jonathan Helmick's is pretty concise. In fact, the Slippery Rock University assistant professor of music and director of bands has only two items he's ever needed to check off.

And in a little less than two years, he'll have cut that list in half.

Barring a phone call from the Vatican, Helmick has no issues leaving that list half done.

Following an invitation from Brendan Carr, Lord Mayor of Dublin, Helmick and SRU's Marching Pride will head across “the pond” to participate in the 2019 St. Patrick's Day Parade in Ireland's capital city.

“There are two international parades that everyone wants to be involved with; one is the Official Rome New Year's Parade that is blessed by the Pope and the other is in Dublin. Right now, we're one for two and that's something not many bands can say and we're good with that,” Helmick said.

The parade is part of Dublin's St. Patrick's Festival that launched in

1996 to “develop a major annual international festival around the national holiday over which the 'owners' of the festival, the Irish people, would stand proud.”

“As the one national holiday that is celebrated in more countries around the world than any other, St. Patrick's Day is the day when everyone wants to be Irish,” said Carr in a statement. “We set out to seize that opportunity, and completely transform the national and international perception of St. Patrick's Day in Dublin.”

While the inaugural festival was contained to just one day, March 17, 1996, it has since grown to a five-day affair of food and arts involving Ireland's finest street-theater companies with lavish pageantry and raucous performances, and marching bands from around the globe.

The Marching Pride will participate in the parade's competition category, which recognizes groups in four areas: best overall band; sectional youth band; sectional adult band; and spirit of the parade.

“We're working on fundraising right now,” Helmick said. “We can't really forecast what it's going to cost because it all depends on the ratio of the dollar to the euro, the price of gas, what happens to our economy in the coming months, etc.”