Japan's Rose, Amanda Ryan (24), needs help getting dressed. Only an expert can fit her traditional yukata, and it takes an hour to put it on.
The Kerryman put Amanda's appeal on its front page, in the hope that someone Japanese in the south-west might have the skill and volunteer to dress Amanda for the Rose of Tralee contest.
Amanda borrowed her yukata from her friend Michelle Ki Uclin, who will be watching the contest from Japan on the Internet.
The Limerick Leader published a Co Limerick doctor's "amazing" claim that he saw "visionary" Christina Gallagher float in mid-air during a prayer session at the House of Prayer at Achill Sound.
Dr Michael Anketell of Croom reportedly witnessed Ms Gallagher's body arching back. "Thinking she was about to fall and crack her head off the floor, I leapt forward, and found to my amazement that her whole body seemed to be suspended as if in mid-air.
"Suddenly to my shock her head and neck snapped back in a 90-degree angle, so that her face and head were now in a horizontal position to the ceiling . . ." Ms Gallagher's unblinking eyes seemed fixed and dilated despite very bright spotlights and flashing cameras. His training indicated that she appeared to be suffering from brain damage or brain death, he said, and a bright white disc like a Communion host suddenly appeared on her tongue. The event had "no natural, medical, scientific or psychological explanation", Dr Anketell claimed.
A "massive" Garda investigation is under way into allegations of sexual and physical abuse at a Sligo national school in the 1970s, said the Sligo Champion. A number of former pupils have already come forward with complaints about more than one former teacher.
"A source close to the investigation has said that the complaints concern some of the most sickening and degrading acts of sexual and physical abuse ever encountered by gardai", wrote Paul Deering. The gas find off the Achill coast was causing anxiety in Co Mayo, with the local newspapers offering their own wildly varied scoops.
"Gas to come ashore in Erris," declared the Connaught Telegraph, which believed that "the most likely pipeline route will then bring gas to Ballina before curving north-eastwards to Sligo town and possibly crossing the Border into Northern Ireland".
But the Mayo News was pessimistic that Mayo would benefit at all, and speculated that the potential "gas bonanza" may indeed, as earlier reported, be pumped to Ayr, on the west coast of Scotland.
"Last week's much-publicised gas find off the Achill coast could yet prove to be something of a false dawn for the people of Mayo as there are increasing fears that the county will be bypassed when the British exploration company, Enterprise Oil, commence pumping the huge reserves of gas ashore," it said.
Mr Pat Kilbane, a councillor, claimed Enterprise Oil had not sought any input from anyone in Mayo. "I think this development is of such magnitude that public representatives in the western region need to get together and do some hard talking with this company.
"If that means increasing the corporation tax on the company, well, so be it. This is a find of huge potential, and the country must benefit from it," he said.
Serious doubts about whether the Corrib gas find would reach Mayo were also expressed by the Western People.
An offshore exploration expert, Michael Cunningham of Castlebar, warned readers against apathy, pointing out that the "tight-lipped stance" of industry in discussing their plans with local people was in stark contrast to the manner in which the Norwegian and UK oil and gas industry developed.
"If we here in Mayo do not now awaken and insist that Corrib gas is landed in Mayo, then Mayo and the north-west are likely to lose out," he said.
Ferns in Co Wexford is celebrating its status as "Ireland's historical capital". The Echo said the discovery of a 2,000-year-old Iron Age burial site by workers digging for a new sewage treatment scheme was "one of the most important historical and archaeological findings of this century".