A YORK Irish bar is due to go well and truly international when it holds its St Patrick's Day party.

Staff at O'Neill's, in Low Ousegate, plan to celebrate the saint's day every time it reaches one of seven different countries. This means the bar started its party 12 hours early, at noon today, as the seventeenth dawned in Fiji. From there, there will be six more celebrations as the day arrives in Sydney, Beijing, Delhi, Rome, Honolulu - and of course Dublin.

Irish fiddles and hats will be given away to revellers who get into the spirit, and collections will be made for the Royal National Institute For The Blind.

Bar manager Damian O'Kane said: "Yes, St Patrick's Day is Sunday, March 17, but we just can't wait that long and waste the weekend.

"You don't have to be Irish - you just need to think Irish now that St Pat's has become a truly worldwide party."

Updated: 10:24 Saturday, March 16, 2002