MARAUDING hordes of goats and kamikaze sheep have made front, page news this spring. But even they have had to make way for the latest animal sensations, the VIP pet resort and the "cross country calf". The Kildare Nationalist's front page pictured a local farmer, Mr Edward Fitzacary, hanging on for dear life to a rope attached to the neck of a leaping calf which was ahout to plunge headlong into a canal.

The little Friesian heifer is uncatchable once she sets off on one of her cross country runs, the newspaper told us. A month ago, when it was just two weeks old, the heifer went missing in the county after running five miles.

Mr Fitzacary had given up looking for her, when at 5 a.m. he went to look in on his lambs and ewes. There snuggled in the straw was the errant calf, "nothing the worse for wear". Mr Fitzacary said. "Never in my lifetime in farming have I come across anything like it."

The Phoenix Park casino resort proposals may sound fantastic, but they fade in comparison to the opulence and hedonism of the Tender Loving Care Pet Holiday Home at Mountshannon on the shores of Lough Derg. Pets register at reception with a paw mark, are housed in individual suites with beds, curtains, cushions, pictures, plants, infrared lighting, central heating and piped music, said the Clare Champion.

Operated by a Swiss woman, Ms Elizabeth Lowe, who came to Ireland in 1980, the resort's pet guests sleep in proper beds, eat off plates, have "their own kitchen, shampoo and shower facilities and are serenaded to Sex is even available in the honeymoon suite for dogs, where Maxi, Ms Lowe's own Jack Russell, is available for mating.

The "Queen Mum" is the latest Connemara pony fan, said the Connacht Tribune. When Life of a Lord, owned by Spiddal hotelier Michael Clancy, became the third Irish horse ever to land the prestigious Whitbread Gold Cup at Sandown Park, Clancy was not there to see the victory because he is afraid of flying.

The British Queen Mother was so anxious to speak to Clancy in the winner's enclosure that without moving from the spot she telephoned him on her mobile phone, telling him that she understood he was a breeder of Connemara ponies and that she would like to buy one.

The ubiquitous "mobile" has become so irritating to Circuit Court Judge Cyril Kelly that at a sitting in Longford recently he warned that "the next person whose mobile phone rings will go to jail".

The Connacht Tribune's front page showed the wreckage of a local bank which was partially demolished when raiders used a 20 tonne CAT bulldozer to attempt to break open an ATM machine. The steel reinforced machine survived intact, as it did during a similar failed raid in Dublin. A bank security officer described it as "a hard night's work for nothing".

The Limerick Leader valiantly declared that "Fame has not spoilt Dolores". It said that "no one in the hamlet of Luddenmore, where Dolores O'Riordan grew up, recognises the Dolores being painted this week by media and music critics..."

Very few of the singer's neighbours had bothered to read the critics or listen to the latest Cranberries album; all that mattered to them was that Dolores had remained a "nice, friendly girl" said the Leader. One elderly woman who lives on her own said that she "will never forget the young girl who tapped on her door once in the early hours of the morning to see if she was all right after seeing a car pull up a short time earlier".

The Longford News reported local speculation that the return to Longford from Mullingar of Albert Reynolds's son, Philip Reynolds, is "clear evidence" of an upcoming battle for the presidency between Albert Reynolds and the former Taoiseach, Charles J. Haughey, at the Fianna Fail convention.

THE Ballymena Guardian previewed the Northern Ireland Forum election, set for

May 30th, and pictured 15 of the hopeful candidates from the Alliance, DUP, Workers Party and Ulster Unionist parties, all of whom are male, proving that while they may have political differences they also have much more in common than they realise.

However, being male may be a political liability in Clare, where Fianna Fail is hunting for a high profile woman candidate capable of delivering the third seat, without which they "haven't a hope" of a single party government, the Clare Champion said. On the same front page, the Champion plugged the "multi talented national president of the Irish Countrywomen's Association, Ms Bridin Twist" of Ennis. How's that for subtlety?