Two Co Wicklow rectors expect to find it "strange" to "learn to live with each other again" when they relocate to parishes in the US. The Revs Christopher and Paula Halliday, who are married, have not shared a house in nine years because of "the Church of Ireland rules", stated the Wicklow People. They will be leaving their respective parishes at Rathdrum and Carnew on February 20th for their new life in the diocese of Washington, DC, where their parishes will be adjacent and they will live under one roof.
As the Kilkenny People declared that Kilkenny was "losing the drugs war", it emerged that political instability is preventing the war against heroin use by children as young as 10 in Ballymena, Co Antrim. "There is that much heroin going through at the moment it's unbelievable. To me it's going to become the major health problem of the century," stated Deputy Mayor P.J. McAvoy in the Ballymena Guardian.
The drugs crisis in the borough is worsening "week by week" as a result of "dithering" by Stormont politicians, and since the suspension of the Stormont Assembly may now be handed back to the Northern Ireland Office, stated the Guardian. A £5.5 million sterling fund for the war against drugs was announced last year by Stormont Minister Adam Ingram. He left as the Stormont Assembly was formed and responsibility for the distribution of the cash was handed over to local politicians, who were confused over which office should have control of the drugs problem.
A soaring teenage population at Dunmore Road, in Waterford city, is being described as "a powder keg waiting to explode" by local residents, stated the Munster Express.
The Association of Combined Residents Associations is calling for Garda sub-stations to be set up at Dunmore Road and at the other outlying areas of Ballybeg/Lisduggen and Gracedieu.
The fact that the south-east of the city is seen as "upmarket" is no protection against crime and upheaval, claimed the association's chairman, Mr Jimmy Hannigan.
Self-appointed vigilantes in Castlebar, Co Mayo, have been given a stern warning by District Court Judge Mary Devins, stated the Mayo News.
She made her comments after being told that threatening circulars had been dropped through the letter boxes of a number of homes in Castlebar.
Gardai in Naas, Co Kildare, have stepped up patrols "with a vengeance" in a bid to curb gang violence and street crime after a spate of assaults, according to the Leinster Leader.
The Roscommon Herald is among more than 40 newspapers participating in the new Unison.ie website. Readers with set-top boxes attached to their television sets will not only be able to access their local newspaper, but to send and receive e-mails and surf the Internet.
The Internet's dark side was exposed by reports in the Waterford News & Star and the Munster Express that gardai in Dungarvan, Co Waterford, are preparing a file for the DPP in what is believed to be the first case of child pornography being distributed on the Internet from an Irish base.
According to the Connaught Telegraph, Mayo County Council is calling in its chips with the promoters of Riverdance by asking them to back a dance and music academy to be established at the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology in Castlebar.
"Former Riverdance star Michael Flatley took part in a concert in Dublin, marking the Mayo 5000 celebrations, which was produced by Moya Doherty. This inspired the routine which formed the centre-piece of RTE's Eurovision Song Contest the following year, out of which Riverdance was born," said the newspaper.