The British royal insignia is to be removed from all official Northern Ireland documents and papers and the DUP isn't happy, according to the Impartial Reporter.
"What better way to further weaken the link with the rest of the UK and to further accommodate Gerry Adams and his increasing flock of released terrorists than to remove the Crown from all official Northern Ireland documents?" asked Cllr Bert Johnston of the DUP.
"This is yet another attempt at the dilution of British sovereignty from Northern Ireland as part of the Belfast Agreement and as part of the first anniversary of this increasingly frowned-upon deal," he said.
The number of female drink-drivers has doubled in the past year, said the Mayo News. The number arrested last year for drink-driving also doubled, rising from 151 to 340.
Sixteen people were killed on Mayo roads last year, two-thirds of them under 22. Fifty per cent of the fatal accidents occurred on minor roads, giving the lie to the perception that fatalities occur mainly on major roads.
"City traffic in Kilkenny has increased by a staggering 150 per cent over the last five years," said the Kilkenny People in its lead story, "and people can brace themselves for a similar explosion in traffic between now and the year 2004."
The county engineer, Mr Don O'Sullivan, envisages the pedestrianisation of the entire medieval centre of Kilkenny, which cannot be done without the completion of the city's ring road and the construction of an inner relief road.
Mr John McGuinness TD has another solution: bury the traffic. He wants to build an underground car-park for between 600 and 800 cars at the Castle Park. He also envisages an Olympic-size swimming pool as part of the project. (When the underground car-park fills up, they can always start piling cars into the pool.)
Swimming pools also featured in the Argus, which said Dundalk hoped to celebrate the millennium with the building of a community swimming pool and leisure complex. With rising costs, building the pool will exceed the £6.6 million estimate originally proposed. The State will fund only a standard pool at a cost of £2.5 million; with other funding Dundalk would have £4.6 million, leaving it a couple of million short.
"The old chestnut of going for the national 50-metre pool was raised," said the Argus, "with Cllr Stephen Burns asking if they let the leisure element for a 50 metres pool, would the Government fund it, to which the county manager replied, `You would have whiskers on!'."
Residents in Askea in Carlow are concerned about what they call the "Tallaght-isation" of their parish, said the Nationalist and Leinster Times. Almost 200 residents gathered at a public meeting to discuss the "mind-boggling size" of the development, which is valued at £60 million. It includes seven schemes of houses, plus the allocation of commercial units at either end of the development.
"What I am afraid of is that we will be living in misery for 10 or 20 years with no footpaths and inadequate roads, while the council play `catch-up' on the development," said resident Andy Whitmore.
A Clonmel garda is being hailed as a hero after risking his life to save a drowning girl. Garda Larry Bergin is to be nominated for a Scott Medal for bravery, said the Nationalist and Leinster Advertiser, after spending an hour in the freezing waters of a raging Suir river to rescue a girl who had fallen in at 4 a.m. on St Patrick's Day.
Bravery was also displayed by an elderly priest who said Mass only 20 minutes after being robbed at knifepoint, said the Leinster Leader.