THIS year's St Patrick's Day celebrations have been handed a last-minute boost after a shamrock supplier donated thousands of the plants to the city.

Derby's Irish community feared the annual celebration would suffer this year after freezing weather led to a shamrock shortage in Ireland.

But after a Derby Telegraph story highlighted the problem, a supplier in County Cork stepped forward to help out.

Thousands of the three-leafed plants have reached the city and will be handed out at tomorrow's St Patrick's Day parade.

Nuala Hopkins, 26, who has helped organise the parade, is delighted the celebrations will go ahead as normal.

She said: "There was a real danger we wouldn't have any shamrock at all.

"It is a very symbolic part of the Irish community's St Patrick's Day celebrations. We were thinking of other ways to include it, such as having shamrock badges made and handed out in place of the real thing."

The shamrock shortage started after severe weather meant many of the plants at the city's usual supplier did not survive.

Derby's St Patrick's Day Committee then appealed for crates to be delivered from other suppliers but found many were already sold out.

But now, several crates will be unboxed and prepared in time for tomorrow's celebrations. which will begin in Derby Market Place at 10am.

Revellers will parade down Iron Gate to St Mary's Church at 10.30am.

A civic mass will be held until noon, after which shamrocks will be given out for people to pin on their lapels.

The shamrock is Ireland's national emblem and is mainly grown in Ireland. Suppliers fly crates of the plant all over the world in preparation for St Patrick's Day, on March 17.

Its role in Irish culture is a symbolic one. According to legend, St Patrick used it to explain the Holy Trinity to the pre-Christian Irish people.

The celebrations will be capped off by a black-tie ball at Pride Park Stadium's Toyota Suite from 7.30pm.

Tickets for the ball cost £35. Contact Damian McGirr on 0780 1980 475 or Mary Murphy on 0794 162 1488.