A day after lifting many of the city’s COVID-19 mandates, Mayor Eric Adams marched in a St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Queens, where he insisted the Big Apple was “back” — and no longer boring.

“This parade was the first to stop during COVID, so it’s important that it’s the first to open – that we say our city is back — bigger, stronger and better than ever,” said Adams during the Queens County St. Patrick’s Day Parade in the Rockaways.

It was only Friday that the nightlife-loving mayor declared “we have become boring as a city,” during the past two years dealing with a pandemic. 

“We are back to being this exciting place we call New York,” he told The Post Saturday, while marching in his first parade as mayor.

“People want to be out,” a smiling Adams gushed. “They want to enjoy their city.”

Starting Monday, Big Apple eateries, gyms, cultural institutions and entertainment venues will no longer be required to check for proof of vaccination before serving customers indoors. Mask-wearing requirements are also being lifted in city schools — but Adams is still under fire from critics for opting to keep the controversial mandate for kids under 5 years old.

Some onlookers jeered Adams, including a women who shouted “No masks for 3K/4K!” referring to the mask requirement for the youngest school children.

However, unlike his predecessor Bill de Blasio, who was notoriously heckled while marching in parades as mayor, Adams was predominately well-received by the more than a thousand people who attended the festivities.

“Welcome to the Rockaways. De Blasio left you garbage. Good luck,” shouted one parade watcher.

Shortly before cutting a ceremonial ribbon to mark the start of the parade, Adams told dozens of supporters that the Rockaways “is the rock of our city,” considering all the cops, firefighters and other civil servants who live there.

“I really appreciate you, and I could not think of any other place to be but to be here and marching with you,” he said.

“The luck of the Irish is with all New Yorkers!”

Along the parade route, he waved an Irish flag, greeted onlookers, forked over $10 to buy a green-colored bracelet from two enterprising 11-years old — and even stopped to take a shot of Jameson whisky. 

One onlooker, Sam Curran, told Adams that his two dogs “are scared to ride the subway” after the mayor petted them. Adams — who has made weeding out subway crime a main goal of his mayoralty — didn’t respond.

Another parade-goer, Christine James, an occupational therapist for city schools, said she was “excited” Adams attended the parade and is glad that the mask mandate is over.

“It feels like freedom because I could hardly breathe sometimes walking up and down the stairs at school,” she said. “I feel so great.”