WHEN the Christmas lights of Longford Town failed to shine during the switching on ceremony, UDC chairman Mickey Nevin asked if the assembled "clergymen's prayers carried any clout at all?"
In Galway, they were asking other questions as the city's outdoor crib at Eyre Square was burned by vandals. Mr Padraic McCormack TD blamed parents who didn't know their children's whereabouts and what they were getting up to at all times.
Vandals as young as seven years are part of a "sickening new breed" who are attacking "the community of the town and people's aspirations" in Enniscorthy, said the Echo. "Loutish hands smashed dozens of the symbolic white bulbs on the Peace Tree in the town centre, while a spate of graffiti littered everything in its path," it said.
And people complain that Castleblayney's Christmas Crib of galvanised steel and wire can be compared to a British army border observation post? As the Northern Standard reported, it's erected by the Knights of Columbanus with the assistance of the local fire brigade. You can bet it's indestructible.
In Ballaghaderreen, Co Roscommon, they celebrated another kind of lighting up. Local cigar manufacturers Villiger Ireland has won a contract for the Manchester United Football Club. The company employs 60 people who make 30 million cigars a year for export to Europe, said the Roscommon Champion.
LIMESTONE from Kilkenny, meanwhile, is being sent to the Dutch city of Eindover where it will be used for a £300 million municipal art work as p$art of the city's redesign. Artists Mall Mulligan and Lawrence Weiner are constructing a "red carpet" of 14 works of art alongside the Van Abbe Museum, said the Roscommon Herald.
Keep your eyes open on those country walks. A church altar found in a hedge is worth £20,000, said the Kerryman. Encrusted with muck and leaves, this "gem" was restored and replaced in Ballyferriter Church. It was commissioned for £80 in 1900 by an Irish emigrant to the US.
Armed checkpoints and "choppers" are being employed in the fight against crime in the west. The Roscommon Herald said armed detectives would accompany uniformed gardai on checkpoint duty, as "Operation Shannon" is intensified and renamed "Operation Retrieval" in the lead-up to Christmas.
A major police effort to apprehend drunk drivers is also under way, with many local newspapers highlighting the seasonal crackdown. The Sligo Champion said that "this year's clampdown will be more intensive than ever", while the Longford News reported three drink-driving arrests.
That other annual crackdown on Christmas poitin supplies made headlines, with the New Ross Standard reporting that a "complete poteen distilling plant" was found in remote farmland near Clonroche.
It says something that in the Republic today, ecstasy tablets are easier to come by. They're even "widely available" on the streets of Sligo, where they are being sold for £20 each at a cost of only £3 each to suppliers. At least two young people have been treated in hospital in Sligo over the past two weeks suffering from serious side effects of the drug, said the Sligo Champion.
CASTLEBAR publican has found a way to prevent beer and lager drinkers from losing their heads. The Connaught Telegraph reported that Oliver Kelleher, a barware supplier from Castlebar, knows how to keep the head on a pint of beer for more than two hours. He places an insignia on the inside bottom of the glass with a special tool which he has invented.
The friction of the gas in the drink on the insignia results in a steady stream of gas to the top of the pint, thereby leaving the pint (or glass) with a perfect head. It also eliminates the problem of publicans having to "top up" drinks.
