THE Drumcoura City cowboy ranch in south Leitrim, which featured late, year in the Blind Date TV programme, may be demolished, the Longford Leader told us. Viewers of Blind Date will recall the disastrous date between a young woman who was forced to socialise with the horses and the film crew while her "date" spent the entire time bragging on his mobile phone to friends in the UK.
The log cabin style entertainment complex was built on the shores of Lough Gowna by Mr Michael Hehle, from Austria, without planning permission. He has since failed to convince An Bord Pleanala that it should stay. ,Among the grounds for the council's decision to refuse permission for the ranch's retention was that it was placed too close to the shoreline.
If the county council "takes a certain course of legal action", the newspaper said, "the owner of the house may be forced to demolish it the first time the council would have legally imposed such an order."
The many ads for local branches of Weight Watchers and the advice from Bishop Brendan Comiskey in Wexford's Echo that it's "important to bow to the crib" were reminders of the season that's in it, but for some there was no break at all.
Bertie Ahern spent his Christmas and New Year holidays sweating over the situation in Limerick West - at least according to the Limerick Leader. An anxious Bertie is set to "plead" with "party rebel Cllr Michael Brennan" not to run in the next general election. Certain high ranking Fianna Fail members have even offered him a place in the Seanad if he will agree not to run.
Fianna Fail fears that if Cllr Brennan runs as an independent he could scuttle the chances of both its candidates in Limerick West, where the party needs to win two seats if it is to get back in power. To make matters worse, John Gallahue, a former adviser to Willie O'Dea, is planning to run, putting four people with Fianna Fail backgrounds on the ballot paper.
Two versions of Co Mayo were presented by rival local press. The Mayo News declared that the county is among the "most socially deprived" areas in the Republic. "Contrary to popular belief, most poor people do not live in large suburban housing estates, but in rural areas," it said. But the Western People highlighted a record year for tourism in Co Mayo, citing "the biggest spend yet" with "the industry investing huge sums of money in improved facilities".
There was good news too in Co Donegal, where property prices jumped by 20 per cent in 1996, the Donegal Democrat said. But sure, don't they all want to be near Daniel. The "entertainer of the year" was met by hundreds at his welcome home bash, which had a TD, an MEP, a couple of parish priests, a nun, a school principal and representatives of the Mary from Dungloe festival committee all crowding on to a platform erected by the local GAA club, while locals struggled to keep warm by a huge bonfire.
Daniel O'Donnell, ever humble, said that the welcome was completely unexpected. "I got out of the car in Enniskillen and decided it needed a wash but if I knew 50 many people were waiting for me on a cold night the wash would have waited and I wouldn't have been wasting time," he said.
In its "Looking Back" column, the Impartial Reporter of Fermanagh drew on its 150 year old files to recall past New Year's editions. In 1847, the news was that "the town commissioners have determined upon erecting an elegant square on the Fair Green". In 1896, "an unusual amount of business was transacted at the Enniskillen Post Office during the Christmas week. There were 134 special baskets of parcels received and 148 dispatched".
Fifty years ago on January 2nd, 1947, the Impartial Reporter wrote that "courage was the keynote of the King's Christmas Day broadcast from Sandringham".
Some day another generation will look back on the Impartial Reporter's editorial of January 2nd, 1997, to taste the "hopes and fears" of the times. "A year ago we all looked forward to happier times. We had become so accustomed to peace that everything around us became normal again. But living in Northern Ireland, we should always remind ourselves that such thoughts are fraught with danger," it began.
Recalling that Canary Wharf broke the peace and the events of the summer of 1996 shattered everyone's illusions, the newspaper refused to relinquish hope. In reviewing the events of local life in 1996, "what comes to the fore is the resilience, courage and commitment of the people of this county who desperately want to live ordinary lives".
