Eric Adams is bringing his “party mayor” rep to the return of St. Patty’s Day in the Big Apple.

The mayor started celebrating the first COVID-19-restriction-free St. Patrick’s Day in three years early Thursday, beginning his bar-hopping about 9 a.m.

The normally night-crawling mayor started an early two-stop Midtown Manhattan pub crawl at Connolly’s, where he made an appearance on “The Jim Kerr Show” on classic rock station Q 104.3 at Connolly’s, an Irish tavern on the East Side of Manhattan.

Adams celebrated the parade’s return, after it was cancelled in 2020 and 2021 thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“I always equate this to a 9/11 moment. You know, when I saw those two buildings collapse on 9/11, we lost so many heroes and she-roes in all different walks of life. But then on 9/12, we got up,” he said.

“And so COVID is not terrorism, but it brought terror. And now we have that 9/12 moment when we march down in the St. Patrick’s Day parade, we’re getting up and we said New York is stronger, better and we’re ready to get back to our city being open,” added Adams, drawing cheers from the early morning bar goers.

“That parade is just more than just a ceremonial march, it is displaying the strength of the Irish people. Irish people are the individuals who build New York City, with so many of the immigrants.”

Then, before entering the Pig N Whistle Public House, the vegan lifestyle-professing Adams joked that his name was Eric O’Adams and quipped he’d downed a Guinness “right after” a smoothie.

He posed for pictures and drank another Guinness at a bar table with two men in Army uniforms as well as the owner of the pub, Eugene Wilson and its manager, Theresa Burke Sigler. 

There, a pair of sisters visiting the Big Apple from Corofin in County Galway, Ireland had narrowly missed seeing the mayor.“We saw him on the TV in the morning and he said something along the lines of let’s get lit! I loved it,” said Emma Ryder, 29, who may have been loosely translating what Adams said. 

“He’s up for the craic!” quipped her sister, Lorena. 

The celebration comes after last week Adams marched in a St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Queens, where he declared the Big Apple was “back.” 

The mayor, wearing a green tie for the occasion, then marched in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade — which is back in full force for the first time since 2019 — starting at 44th street while at one point gushing  that he was “feeling the energy” after being greeted with cheers. 

He walked alongside NYPD Commissioner Sewell and the department’s first deputy commissioner, Edward Caban, as a marching band proceeded ahead of them. When asked for his favorite Big Apple parade, Adams replied “this one.” 

After exiting at 78th Street, he walked into an apartment to use the restroom, before being driven to City Hall.

Adams was well-received during his jaunt, though he was heckled outside the Pig N Whistle by a parent who wanted their young children to be allowed to go unmasked in public school classrooms. 

“What is the logic behind this,” fumed Naum Goldenstein, a parent of a 2-year-old and 4-year-old, shouting “the parents have a voice too.” 

The celebration comes after last week Adams marched in a St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Queens, where he declared the Big Apple was “back.” 

In March 2020, the St. Patrick’s Day Parade, which first came to the Big Apple before the country was even born, in 1762, was among the first public gatherings to be canceled as the coronavirus began spreading in the five boroughs.