An eight-year-old boy in Clarina, Co Limerick, concealed himself so well during a game of hide-and-seek, that five hours later he still had not been found - even with the help of gardai and an infra-red heat-seeking detector on a helicopter.
After a frantic all-night search, the boy's desperate parents found him at 5 a.m hiding under his bed.
Small children, small problems, or so they say. A post office in Kilcormac, Co Offaly, was robbed by a 12-year-old, a 14-year-old and a 15-year-old last week. Two youths distracted a sales assistant while the third went behind the counter and took £600 in cash, jewellery and Prize Bonds.
Roaming "boyos" have thrown Mountmellick in to a "Law & order crisis", said the Laois Nationalist. After a series of late-night brawls, the town commis sioners have called for extra gar dai to be stationed in the town.
"Youngsters are hunting in packs all hours of the day and night," said Mr Paddy Bracken. "People are afraid to walk the streets at night. Old people are living in fear. It is time these boyos were rounded up. Is it too late to have Daingean reformatory reopened?"
Dundalk Urban Council has banned drinking on the street in an attempt to prevent drunks begging in the Market Square.
If the poitin stills are bubbling, it must be coming up to Christmas. The annual season of raids has begun, but you have to wonder why it is that while gardai were able to smash a sophisticated poitin operation in Castlefin, Co Donegal, (Donegal Democrat), the more sinister heroin remains readily available on the streets of Carlow (the Nationalist and Lein- ster Times). Ten dealers are operating there at the moment, said the newspaper.
The father of an Irish au pair who "became trapped in a nightmare au pair situation in America" told the Wexford Echo his daughter narrowly missed becoming another Louise Woodward. Tom Moorehouse, a member of Enniscorthy UDC, warned parents not to let their daughters take up nanny or au-pair jobs in the US. His 24-year-old daughter was "shocked" to discover her duties included bringing the youngsters to and from school, as well as cooking and cleaning.
One day she took a moment to go to the toilet and the youngest child set curtains on fire. "But there was even greater trauma to follow, when the children's mother took the Enniscorthy girl to task for the fact that her house had been nearly burned down," said the Echo.
A "costly cupla focal" was how the Leitrim Ob- server described an MEP's failed attempt to have his Irish lessons paid for by the European Parliament.
Joe McCartin, MEP for Connacht/Ulster, is "up in arms" after being told Irish is not an official EU language. He discovered this when he was refused re imbursement of expenses for a refresher course in Irish, which he took last July.
A Mallow businessman was ordered to pay £7,500 after taking a booking deposit for a 150-guest wedding reception from a traveller, then cancelling the wedding with only one day's notice, said the Corkman. The owner of Maudie Mac's "completely wrecked" a young bride's day, said Circuit Court Judge Carroll Moran. The guests had to make do with fast food in a pub.
A 30 per cent increase in the in flux of refugees to Ennis is causing concern, said the Clare Champion. "People on local authority housing lists in Clare are being neglected and discriminated against while state agencies off load refugees in Ennis as a costsaving measure," claimed the newspaper.
The Kerryman's headline, "Letters to God: Child victim's painful plea", told of the trauma of priestly sex abuse. We've heard so much about this that it is hard to read yet another account of a life destroyed by a priest's sexual deviance, but the grief to which the Kerryman devoted its front page is worth quoting.
"I felt I was brought into this world to be abused," said a child victim of jailed paedophile priest, John Brosnan. "God was the only one who would listen to me. I used to write letters to God and write poems trying to explain what happened to me."
Bishop Bill Murphy, as head of the Catholic Church in Kerry, has questions to answer, said the Ker ryman's front-page editorial comment.
It said his statement last week failed to address the issues of apology or compensation and, if it is confirmed that former Bishop O Suilleabhain knew of the abuse - admittedly after it had ended - and failed to act, the issue of compensation would come sharply into focus.
