`I'm alive!", Mickey Doherty told the Longford Leader, which published a picture of Mickey with his doctor to prove the Longford county councillor's heart is still ticking. Mickey was recovering in hospital from a hip operation when he learned that someone had inscribed the letters RIP after his name on a commemorative stone on the Longford by-pass.

"Tasteless, scandalous and universally deplored" was how the council described the act, before calling on gardai to investigate the matter. Mickey himself said: "The whole affair has strengthened my belief in reincarnation" and the letters he would prefer to see after his name were RIH, for "resting in hospital".

The Carrick Casanova had a near-miss with death last week, the Donegal Democrat said. Bernard McHugh, the affable, innocent bachelor farmer who achieved fame on the TV game show Blind Date, nearly drowned while making a video for his version of the Tom Jones hit, Delilah, which he hopes will make the UK charts.

McHugh performs a coy strip routine during the song, but he nearly stripped his last during a stunt on the Teelin pier near his home in south Donegal.

McHugh was sitting on the back of a Nissan Bluebird car which was to freewheel slowly down the slipway and hit a depth of five feet, giving McHugh a chance to jump off and land on his feet. The choreography went awry when the car gained more speed than anticipated and hit the water so hard that it carried itself out into the bay.

McHugh, who can't swim, "began shouting and begging for help, but his friends on the pier were helpless as none of them could swim either. Bernard clung to the car's bumper in 15 feet of icy water for 30 minutes before the tide turned, carrying the car back towards shore and bringing Bernard within reach of the life ring. "It was one of the worst experiences of my life and I was greatly shaken by it all," Bernard said.

A group claiming to be "IRA Co Laois" handed in a letter to the National- ist and Leinster Times in which it threatened to blow up Eircell headquarters in Dublin as well as the homes of local landowners. The group, using a code, stated it objected to Eircell attempting to erect a mast on Clonrook Hill, Crettyard. Why? "Members of Laois IRA own and have spread land in the area on which we will build homes for our members when they are released from prison," the letter stated.

There was property fever also in the Wexford People, which said that Wexford town reached a milestone when a terraced town house sold for the "stunning six-figure amount" of £101,000.

The Kerryman said that the Sap-Fenit-Barrow area is set to become Tralee's Kinsale-like retreat, with buyers willing to pay up to £400,000 for houses overlooking Tralee Bay, which would have been considered outrageous less than 12 months ago. The boom is not being felt in Co Offaly, however, which is set to suffer serious decline unless resources are secured for the county, said the Midland Tribune. A draft report prepared by the county council warned the county's economy suffers a number of critical, if not potentially fatal structural problems, including high unemployment, low population growth, high dependency on agriculture and a GDP per capita rate of only 63.9 per cent of EU average.

The Connacht Tribune reported that a man who was hit on the head with a chip in a takeaway went out to his car and returned with a machete with a 22-inch blade.

Tuam Court heard the defendant "told the arresting garda sergeant that he was `going to take no s . . t from anyone' ". The defendant's solicitor said he had the machete because he had flown in from an area outside the jurisdiction that day to take part in a vermin count and that the item was to be used "in relation to foxes". A Garda superintendent said the man was "aggressive" and would not be allowed to hold a gun licence again. The man was fined £300 and ordered to forfeit the machete.

Parents in Kilkenny are keeping a closer watch on their daughters following a report in the Kilkenny People of a man who has tried and failed to lure young girls into his car with offers of sweets. In one incident, the man stopped a nine-year-old who was walking alone and told her she had better come with him because he had already kidnapped her mother.

In chilling detail, the newspaper said the man is between 30 and 40 years old, has a thin build, short brown hair and a moustache, wears a jumper and blue pants and has a toy teddy bear on the dashboard of his dark blue hatchback.