The puny pumpkin problem, which shoppers may have noticed in the run-up to Halloween, was explained by the Longford Leader. The orange gourds need consistently warm US-style weather, according to Mr Ned Molloy, the All-Ireland pumpkin-growing champion and local supermarket-owner who wants Longford to become the leading pumpkin-producing county.
This year the pumpkins weigh a mere 12-14lb each, not exactly in the giant pumpkin category. Mr Molloy began growing giant pumpkins as a joke, along with giant sunflowers. The flowers didn't work out.
Pumpkin-carving has its origins in Ireland, where people carved out turnips until Famine times, when they brought the carving tradition to the US and discovered that carving pumpkins was easier than hollowing out turnips, added the newspaper.
Some of the workers involved in the demolition of the Atlantic Hotel in Kilkee had an unexpected windfall when they unearthed at least $35,000 in $100 bills from beneath the rubble, said the Clare Champion. Their joy turned to dismay when they cashed in the money and learned the bills were counterfeit. They may now find themselves facing criminal prosecution.
Five people have so far been arrested following investigations by gardai, the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation and the American Treasury Department. "Foreigners" now make up 30 per cent of the population of Tuosist, Beara Peninsula, Co Kerry, said the Kerryman. "Many people who have lived in Tuosist all of their lives are finding it difficult to build up relationships with the people from other countries who have come to live in the area," stated a report, Tuosist Facing 2000, commissioned by a new initiative to encourage better communication between local and non-national residents.
"This is not a healthy situation. At the very least, the potential of all the people in the area to work collectively for the development of Tuosist is restricted by this factor," the report stated.
But the significance of the communication problem was played down by Father Tom Looney, a member of the Tuosist Development Group, who was "disappointed" at the emphasis on difference. He said the four organists in the parish were non-nationals, that the local ICA Guild was a mixed group and that non-nationals belonged to the local football team and the youth club.
The "unique intimacy" of the Irish has cursed as well as blessed us, said the Limerick Leader. "Our fraternalism tends to degenerate into unofficial freemasonry, whether within families, religions, political parties, professions or whatever."
This leads to "moral equivocations generally" and "the fine line between honesty and dishonesty is often blurred. Favouritism, fibbing and fiddling are rife in everyday life, so much so that we have largely ceased to notice."
Over 5,000 investors in the Clare-Limerick area held an estimated £50 million in overseas accounts with Allied Irish Banks in 1991 when the bank sought settlement with the Revenue Commissioners over tax due from bogus non-resident accounts, said the Clare Champion.
"One retired senior financial services manager who held a top position in the area during the 1970s and 1980s said managers and staff at financial institutions throughout the region were under intense pressure to hold on to deposits. He also confirmed that hundreds of accounts in fictitious names were lying dormant in banks because the person who made the lodgments had died in the meantime.
"He referred specifically to the high-profile sale of a well-known bar and restaurant in the Clare area, and the subsequent investigation by the Revenue Commissioners amid revelations of big lodgments in a Limerick building society under a fictitious name and address in the Bronx, NY."
This was simply "the tip of the iceberg," he told the newspaper.
The trend towards civic pride is hitting its stride in Killarney, where the horses will soon be wearing nappies, according to Kerry's Eye. In Enniscorthy a litter warden will soon be patrolling the streets to hand out on-the-spot fines, said the Echo. In Galway a restaurant-owner is offering free pizzas in exchange for cleaning up the beaches, said the Galway Advertiser.