Apparitions, potholes and some stressed-out goats made headlines. The poor goats have Flatley phobia. Riverdance has made the bodhran so popular that their hides are under threat. There are "no goats in Flatley's fan club", said the Connaught Telegraph, because rustlers are skinning the goats and offering them for sale to bodhran-makers.

In Roundstone, Connemara, Malachy Kearns is at the centre of a £4 million industry exporting 15,000 instruments a year in an effort to keep up with the demand generated by Riverdance. Sensible goats stay well clear, said the newspaper.

"Mr Kearns says that he receives weekly calls from dealers offering goatskins for sale. But he doesn't want to get involved as these `rustlers' only want to make a quick few bob for booze, cigarettes or even drugs."

Fortunately for the goats, many bodhrans are made with synthetic material and thousands of cheap drums are produced in Taiwan. Goatfriendly bodhrans resonate just as well as those for which goats have died, says Mr Eamon Walsh, PRO of the All-Ireland Fleadh.an until it was stolen from a train.

Special traffic arrangements were being planned for Roscrea over the weekend as the community prepared for a public appearance by the Virgin Mary. The Tipperary Star reported on this bizarre community phenomenon as though it were perfectly normal. "Visionary predicts Roscrea apparition" said its headline.

The visionary, Ms Fiona Tierney (22), from Cork, has been witnessing apparitions of Our Lady since she was 11, said the newspaper. She predicted that the vision of Our Lady would take place at Our Lady's Grotto on the outskirts of Roscrea yesterday. Ms Tierney was witnessing these apparitions on a daily basis at Inchigeela Grotto in Co Cork until 1993, when the Virgin Mary told her that the public apparitions would be restricted to four occasions a year.

Ms Tierney's husband, Donal, told the Tipperary Star that in September, his wife saw Our Lady "standing on the globe and between her and the globe was a serpent which was feeding off the evil of the earth and she was crushing it with her feet".

Maybe that explains the potholes. It's the time of year when frustrated motorists start getting out their tape measures in the unofficial competition for the dubious distinction of largest pothole. The Leitrim Observer reported one measuring 4 ft wide by 9 ins deep.

The response of the Catholic Church to the conviction for sexual abuse of the paedophile priest, John Brosnan, has been "inadequate in the extreme", the Kerryman said. Its editorial said that after the priest's conviction and sentencing to four years imprisonment, "the people of Kerry were treated to a woefully inadequate and almost totally dismissive attitude by spokespersons for the diocese".

Bishop William Murphy, whose statement on the matter was read out at Masses, had refused a request for an interview with the newspaper. The Kerryman recalled that on his appointment, the bishop chose as his motto Nolite Timere, Be Not Afraid.

"Bishop Murphy has no reason to fear an interview with the Kerryman," it said. "We believe that his decision to refuse the interview is a bad one and is in direct contradiction to what he himself called the `greater openness' which now surrounds the issue of child sex abuse."

The Western People wondered whether Ballina's rate at £45.35 was the highest in the State. The answer came in the Northern Standard, which said that Monaghan Urban District Council adjourned in "bizarre and somewhat craven circumstances" when the chairman failed to get a proposer for the council's new rate: £48.52.

Controversy is flaring in Limerick over an alleged psychology session for the Limerick under-16 hurling team before an inter-county final. The Limerick Leader quoted an unnamed medical expert as saying that parents should have been consulted first and the GAA has promised to inform parents in future.

The psychology session turned out to be no more than a 15-minute confidence-building, pre-match pep talk by Ms Mary O'Connor, a GAA development officer at Limerick RTC. The newspaper wondered whether such sessions might send the wrong signal that sport is no longer for fun.