The two Irelands - one anxious for reconciliation and the other clinging to traditional rivalries - were expressed in contrasting reports from the Tipperary Star and the Kilkenny People. The Star said that Cashel UDC has been branded a "loyalist council" by Mr Padraig O Mathuna, a local silversmith with an international reputation.
Mr O Mathuna is refusing to engrave name panels on the chairman's chain of office because the council flew the flag "won by the blood of Irish patriots" at half mast following the death of the Princess of Wales.
But in North Kilkenny, traditional boundaries have vanished in at least one parish where Protestants are running a Catholic Church. The ecumenical gesture has been made in Clogh and Moneenroe where a Church of Ireland couple, Rev Susan Orr and her husband, Rev Andrew Orr, are in charge of Catholic parish affairs while the parish priest, Father Jerry Joyce, is away on pilgrimage, said the People.
Lock up your oil lamps, especially if you live in Ballymena - the worst place in Northern Ireland for antiques thievery, according to the Ballymena Guardian. A cache of such lamps - one alone valued at £800 - was among the £40,000 "Aladdin's cave" found by the RUC when they raided the homes of a pair of father-and-son specialist antique thieves in Kells last week, the paper said. The loot also included three black powder muskets (two in working order), cow's tail water pumps and Royal Doulton figurines.
A politically incorrect drink has drawn the ire of Mary McDonnell, the chairwoman of the KilkennyCarlow Forum of People with Disabilities, said the Kilkenny People. Ms McDonnell has Albinism, a rare condition characterised by white hair, fair skin and pink eyes. She was "disgusted" to hear of a bottled, British drink called ["]Albino["]. It has a white-labelled bottle and carries a "red eye" logo.
Drinks companies should be pursued in the courts for alcoholrelated health damage in the same way as tobacco companies are being sued, said Father Micheal MacGreil, a sociologist. He told the Mayo News that while moderate alcohol consumption was "good and proper", the excess once typical of the working class and peasantry had made its way into the middle class, where beer was making way for wine, sherry and spirits.
Drinks companies had succeeded in commercialising leisure for their own ends and, not satisfied with that, were now actively promoting the off-licence as their outlet in the supermarkets, he said. Bringing food and drink together had a seductive psychological impact, while also making alcohol accessible to young people to drink in town parks.
Street fighting, sometimes fuelled by alcohol, made headlines countrywide. The Connacht Tribune told how celebration turned to tragedy for a group of Tipperary men on a stag night in Galway, when one of them died after being set upon by a local gang.
The Longford Leader reported that a "running battle" between rivals in Longford led to the fatal stabbing of an 18-year-old, the first such incident in the area in eight years. "Modern day faction fighting" among a "drunken, loutish element" at a particular fast food premises in Sligo prompted Judge Oliver McGuinness at Sligo Court to call for the licensing of late night take-aways.
A female garda who helped to break up a violent incident outside a late night take-away in Carlow was dragged into a Garda van and assaulted, said The Nationalist and Leinster Times. Those arrested "went berserk" and beat the female officer, tearing out clumps of her hair.
In Cork, "uncontrollable teenagers with a vendetta" have forced a family to flee their home in fear, said The Corkman.
In Waterford, a female student was accosted by two youths who tried to frog-march her to a bank pass machine, and a group of women students sharing a house had young criminals burst in on them and burgle them in full view, said the Munster Express. In response, the Institute of Technology has since set up a "campus watch" committee.
The Fingal Independent said that the parents of a 10-month-old baby were in shock after their car was stolen from outside a filling station in Ashbourne - with the child still inside. A warning, if ever there was one, to other parents tempted to leave their children in the car while they pop in to the shop, however briefly.
A more innocent time seemed to die at little more last week when Ballinrobe lost a local celebrity, publican Joe Mellotte of The Neale, Ballinrobe. The Western People said the deceased publican was best known for his role as John Wayne's stand-in in The Quiet Man. His pub had been a mecca for US tourists.
