GET your banjos out. The rednecks are coming. Deliverance Irish-style is more about taking potshots at farmyard animals than tying deer to the bonnet US-style. And it may or may not have already arrived on this island.
Shooting safaris in Co Kerry are being offered by a US tour operator, whose Web page has a bizarre picture of two burly American hunters holding a mountain sheep by the horns, to demonstrate the type of game to be found in Kerry, the Kerryman said.
The sheep and goat-hunting holiday promises to be "one of the most enjoyable trips a hunter or non-hunter could ever partake", according to the tour operator, which calls itself Kenia to Kariba. Its Internet brochure promises holiday-makers the time of their lives taking aim at red stag, Sika stag, hybrid stag, Kerry Mountain Sheep, puk goats (sic), wood pigeon, snipe and ringmark pheasants.
Garda Sgt Noel Power of Tralee doubted if such hunting had yet taken place and said there was no such thing as a wild sheep, as they would all belong to a farmer.
Two Kerry-based detectives are among 76 throughout the State who are suing for damages resulting from alleged hearing disabilities suffered while firing State-issued firearms and six of these cases have been settled, said the Kerryman. At least one former employee of the ESB oil-fired generating plant at Tarbert has also lodged a claim for damages resulting from hearing loss, the newspaper added.
Wakes are good for the living, said the Connacht Tribune, reporting research by a PhD candidate in psychology at NUI Galway. Wakes have been going out of fashion due to the popular misconception they are an imposition on those grieving. On the contrary, the ancient Irish tradition is potentially a very valuable part of grieving, according to a survey conducted by Galway-based clinical psychologist Ms Helen Greally.
The Longford Leader reported a crackdown on organised crime in Longford by the Criminal Assets Bureau. "The `crime-busters' targeted certain elements of the Travelling community in particular. A Traveller source has told the Leader that at least 10, if not more, vehicles were seized during the operation, which was aimed at cutting out the piracy of branded products," said the newspaper.
Fears of travelling to the shopping mall on the M50 have been provoked by the vicious mugging of two Leitrim women on a visit to the Liffey Valley Centre, said the Leitrim Observer. The women were heading for the shops when two men attacked them and stole their handbags. Both women were treated in hospital for serious injuries.
Five or six millionaire builders "driving big Mercs" have been created by that tiger, said Cllr Seamus McDonald at a meeting of Laois County Council. Yet stressed-out young families in need of homes were being forced to live in one-roomed flats, a Leinster Express report said.
CO Laois activists are bitterly angry at the Minister for Health's announcement that Tullamore is to get a new modern hospital. The Leinster Express said that at a time when the Laois General Hospital Action Committee and other groups had been fighting for cancer services in Portlaoise, the major Tullamore investment was being seen as a death sentence for Portlaoise General Hospital.