THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

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DUBLIN - Cars torched, firefighters attacked, police bombarded and neighbours terrified: It was another fine St. Patrick's Day in Ireland, where inebriated mobs annually turn districts of Dublin and Belfast into a nightmare.

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THE ASSOCIATED PRESS/Peter Morrison

Students confront police officers in riot gear near Ormeau Road, Belfast. Drunken students living beside Queen's University engaged in drunken street scuffles with police.

Authorities were counting the cost Wednesday from trouble associated with dusk-to-dawn drinking on Ireland's national holiday.

Police said they were still adding up the number of public-order arrests from Tuesday's festivities but said the total would easily exceed 200, typical for recent years.

Meanwhile, police in Northern Ireland clashed with some of the British territory's most privileged youth - hundreds of students at Queen's University, the major college in Belfast - in what authorities called the worst public drinking-related confrontation of any recent St. Patrick's Day.

Nineteen teenagers and 20-somethings, mostly Queen's students, were arrested during several hours of clashes with riot police. Belfast police Supt. Chris Noble said most were still sobering up Wednesday in their cells, while five were arraigned in court on charges of riotous behaviour.

Noble said police expected to arrest more students in coming days after analyzing their surveillance TV footage.

"We will not abandon an area to drunken thugs," he said.

In Ireland, police Commissioner Fachtna Murphy, said the country suffered one of its most dangerous holiday periods on the roads amid increased levels of drunken driving.

He said since Friday police had arrested 346 suspected drunk drivers and 72 for dangerous driving, while eight people died in crashes, compared to three in the same period last year.

The Dublin Fire Brigade said its officers were pelted with stones, cans and bottles in several public housing projects overnight as they dealt with 46 fires, mostly smashed-up cars that had been set ablaze.

Ambulance crews dealing with more than 200 emergency calls - including a dozen stabbings involving knives or broken bottles - said they also suffered physical and verbal abuse as they responded to booze-fuelled bloodshed.