The Roscommon Herald put a new spin on the phrase "shop local". Its headline "Old Jail main weapon in fight to retain shoppers" made you wonder if the town was going a little too far.
"Lock them up until they've spent all their money," is a tried and true method used by airports and Las Vegas gambling resorts, but at least in those places the shoppers enter willingly.
The Old Jail, it turns out, is a shopping centre which Roscommon hopes will entice shoppers from their rival Athlone's shopping centre, Golden Island.
This was just one of many local newspaper reports which created a picture of the traditional rural main street falling victim to rampant malldom. In the US many town centres died when replaced by huge shopping environments.
A "mega mall" based on the US idea of "outlet shopping" and complete with glass dome, lake-cumfountain and 600-space car-park will be built at the disused Harp plant at Rathdowney, Co Laois, said the Leinster Express. The developers of the Republic's "first ever outlet store" say it will create 250 jobs, cost £5 million and attract tourists from all over the world.
"The existing factory, for the first time in many years, will be transferred from an asbestos-ridden eyesore to a jewel in the crown of Co Laois," said the British developer.
The concept of outlet shopping began in Arizona in the 1970s. "Basically it's a means of selling out-of-season and over-ordered stock," said the Leinster Express.
Waterford Corporation's prohibition on "out of town" shopping centres did not stop Superquinn from paying a "staggering" £1.36 million for a 5.2-acre site on Tramore's ring road.
The Waterford News & Star said Superquinn, which bought the site from Purcell Properties on behalf of Waterford Corporation a few weeks ago, remains "confident" that the proposed £10 million development will win the backing of Waterford Corporation, despite the fact that a major shopping complex would contravene the existing city development plan, which prohibits such shopping centres.
The final decision on the rezoning lies with the 15 members of Waterford City Council, who will have to face the dilemma of voting in favour of the supermarket or risk losing the 200 jobs it would generate in Waterford. Superquinn's chairman, Mr Vincent O'Doherty, acknowledged it was "very unusual for any retail development not to end up with An Bord Pleanala these days."
The Castleblayney Urban District Council has taken the "unprecedented" step of revoking planning permission for a private developer to create 51 holiday homes at a local beauty spot, seven months after it had granted permission, said the Northern Standard.
The council took the "far-seeing" decision in the wake of an opposition campaign by the Muckno Action Committee and risks having to pay compensation to the developers.
A proposal to erect a 500-sow integrated pig unit near a scenic village at the foot of the Galtees has caused uproar among the residents of Anglesboro, said the Lim- erick Leader. "Raising hell over plan for 500 sows and 4,000 piglets in paradise," said its headline.
Nobody knows where the Asian Zebra Mussel came from, but it is being credited with bringing about the astonishing and sudden improvement in water clarity on heavily polluted Lough Derg this year. The most likely theory is that it made its way to Lough Derg from the Great Lakes in North America by being accidentally imported in either larval or adult form in ballast waters of ocean-going ships, said the Tipperary Star in its "exclusive" report.
The Zebra Mussel has multiplied rapidly since entering the lake's ecosystem two years ago, and while it may seem to be nature's way of solving a man-made problem, experts are warning that this tiny creature could do more harm than good.
According to an unpublished report by the ESB and University College Galway, the black and cream striped mussel is likely to block pipes in urban water supply systems, at power plants, lockgates and moorings. It may also have a detrimental effect on the ecosystem of the lake, altering spawning beds of the endangered Shannon pollan.