As the nights close in and Hallowe'en approaches, many older people recall evenings of seanachies and storytelling, of visiting neighbours, playing cards and playing tricks on those gathered at the fireside.
Television is often blamed for doing away with that way of life, but how many people would really want to go back to the old days? asked Father Padraig Standun in the Connaught Telegraph. "I often find that people who lived through `the good old days' would be the last to want them back. I have met people who felt intimidated by storytellers, not daring to cough or sniffle on a stool while the seanachie delivered himself of an ancient tale. " `The stories themselves were grand,' someone told me recently, `but there weren't enough of them, you would often know word for word what was coming next.' I have heard of a seanachie who was so incensed that a young person in his audience was not paying attention that he went across the kitchen and darted two fingers into the young person's eyes," he said.
The "modern seanachie" of television "might blind us, but not in such an aggressive way", he added.
As this nation of media-watchers hunker down by the TV, they'll be following the presidential election coverage, and most of the papers believed Mary McAleese might be in more trouble than she thought. "The last thing we need here is a President who is supported by the spokesman for Sinn Fein, least of all the president of that organisation," declared the Kilkenny People.
Dana Rosemary Scallon, Mary Banotti, Adi Roche and Derek Nally all have the capacity to win friends across the nationalist and unionist communities, but Ms McAleese does not, it said. The Sligo Champion commented on the "spectacular ineptitude" of Ms McAleese's handlers. "The public will be tempted to conclude that in the case of Mary McAleese, what you see is not what you get," it said. The Roscommon Champion said that Ms McAleese had better "convince people that her side of the story is the valid one" if she is to retain her position as the favourite.
The Kerryman condemned the "betrayal of the country and the smearing of Mary McAleese", but it also questioned Ms McAleese's handling of the attack. "From the moment she attempted to quash legitimate public debate on the matters which arose from the leaking of the Department of Foreign Affairs documents, Mary McAleese was on a loser," it said.
Ms Mary Banotti was running a strong campaign and because she had managed to stay aloof from the smears, was attracting support from middle of the road voters who appreciated that she was a woman who had "experienced some of the difficulties which life can present, such as the breakdown of her marriage", it said.
The Wexford People believed Ms McAleese had shown an "appalling error of judgment" when she ignored the questions of waiting reporters on the Sunday that the leaks were published. "Her view on Sinn Fein, as perceived by moderate nationalists in the North earlier this year, may still be a cause for concern for a sizeable section of the electorate," it said.
Defending Ms McAleese, the Nationalist of Carlow said that "when the facts are analysed and the memoranda read, this will prove to be a bottle of smoke designed to damage a fine candidate for the Presidency. Thankfully, most voters do not share the small minds that have been at play in recent weeks".
(The papers were commenting before the latest Irish Times/MRBI poll, which showed Ms McAleese with 37 per cent of first preference votes.) The ghostly goings-on at the old Wicklow Jail, built in 1702, have construction workers terrified. At 5.30 a.m. a council worker on overtime was "touched" by something while working inside the building, which is to be reopened as a tourist attraction. He and his 12 co-workers are refusing to enter the building alone or after dark because of "an eerie feeling about the place". The Wexford People said the workmen put the strange happenings down to the moving of beds in the original jail, claiming they may have upset some old spirits.