A FORTUNE teller, a British army general and the Kilkenny People all had eerie foreknowledge of the IRA's Docklands bomb, the local newspapers told.

The Argus of Dundalk splashed out with the fortune teller story, as titled the "terrifying" experience of Mary's College Girls basketball team who were attending a game only 800 yards away from the site of the explosion.

Jean McGuinness, one of the girls caught in the chaos, said her sister, Karen, had been told by a fortune teller that Jean would be with friends when she was going to go through a terrifying experience, but that she and her friends would all be very brave.

The Ballymena Guardian's "exclusive" told us that hours before the IRA strike in London, "Gen Sir Roger Wheeler, General Officer Commanding Northern Ireland, became almost a prophet last Friday morning when he returned to his own Royal Regiment to tell young recruits a passing out parade in Ballymena they still had a vital role to play combatting terrorist (sic).

"The barrack square in St Patrick's Depot was drenched in heavy rain and a bitter late winter wind swept freezingly across it as the men of Barrosa Platoon paraded at their passing out ceremony but the cold was nothing to the chill which gripped the hearts of everyone less than seven hours later when Sir Roger's timely warning about the continued threat of terrorism was brought home with the ending of one of the ceasefires ...

The general blamed the lack of decommissioning for the bomb, while the Kilkenny People blamed the British. It patted itself on the back by quoting its own editorial of the previous week which had predicted that "between them, the unholy trio of Mr Major, Mr Trimble and Sir Patrick Mayhew may yet be the hapless architects of a descent into a new anarchy".

Yet while it believed the British "goaded the IRA into a terrible decision" ... "their culpability is as nothing when compared with the heinous crime for which the IRA were last week directly responsible ... What the IRA did is immoral, it is a crime against humanity and we condemn those acts as a bloody abomination."

The Leinster Leader thought the most frightening question raised by the IRA's bombing at Docklands was who is really making the crucial decisions on the republican side? "It's back to the faceless men, the ones who don't speak, the ones who only act," said the Leinster Leader.

"The IRA's return to violence is a monumental betrayal of the Irish people," said the Sligo Champion. "It's also an act of prodigious political stupidity - a blunder of epic proportions which has played right into the hands of the Unionists whose reprehensible intransigence of the past 18 months they will now self righteously portray as simple and justifiable caution." The Kerryman said "the ruthless, murderous, dishonourable, unacceptable and premeditated decision of the IRA to visit death and mayhem upon innocent people in London last Friday evening is profoundly ... The IRA don't act for us. Murdering innocent people does not have our approval. It's not being done in our name."

It also believed that "amidst all the talk of inclusive dialogue and the need for political negotiations leading to a lasting peace, one runs the risk of failing to recognise evil - even when it stares one in the face. The Canary Wharf atrocity was an evil act by people bent on destruction and murder. The IRA have again displayed how deeply they are wedded to blood letting . . . There can be no question of Sinn Fein regaining its previous status at government buildings until a new ceasefire is called."

WHILE bombing in the streets dominated the leader columns, litter in the streets hogged the headlines in some places. There was "fury" in Bundoran at being branded "dirtiest town in Ireland" (Donegal Democrat) and the Longford News's headline said "Dirty Old Town? Unwanted billing is erroneous".

In Kinnegad, the Westmeath County Secretary Mr Ciaran McGrath blamed "lazy journalism" and "people not from Kinnegad, but travelling through" for its place as the second dirtiest town in Ireland, the Westmeath Examiner reported.

A headline in the Nationalist and Munster Advertiser, "Flashing motorists could be alerting murderers", turned out to concern the habit of the friendly "flashing" of headlamps to warn oncoming motorists of Garda roadblocks meant to apprehend criminals.

Next time you meet a Garda, maybe you should ask for ID. "Garda robbed Kildare shop!" said the Leinster Leader. On Wednesday, "a raider wearing a balaclava and brandishing a baseball bat made off with the contents of a cash register. The following evening, a man presented himself as a Garda detective investigating the previous day's robbery - and then made off with the till after requesting to examine it!"