"House prices go through the roof", exclaimed the Impartial Reporter in a report which sounded like Dublin a decade ago, but was actually Enniskillen today.
"Despite the county's economic ills, house prices here are bucking the trend by showing continuing steady increases of up to 10 per cent, leaving house prices in Fermanagh among the highest in the province."
The Ulster Bank-sponsored quarterly house price index has listed the average price of a home in the county at £67,725 sterling, while the average price in Northern Ireland as a whole is now sitting at £75,558 compared to £63,361 just two years ago.
Exclusive properties such as those on the county's lough are worth £250,000 "and still rising!" added the newspaper - no doubt shocking Dublin property owners used to paying that for a relatively modest three-bed semi-d.
The Mayo News foresaw a US-style west where international professional travellers zipped in and out of convenient western airports and where drivers cruised unimpeded on highways unmarred by potholes, stray cows and the like.
"We want a system in place based on the US model where you have super-highways with industrial jobs available on one side and nice areas of residential accommodation on the other," Mr Noel Treacy, Minister of State for Science, Technology and Commerce, said.
In Tallaght, Co Dublin, shocked motorists were confronted with an unexpected obstruction - an 8 ft python, stated the Midweek Echo, describing the snake as "the full Monty". Discovered on wasteland, the snake is thought to be one of only 100 in the country and would probably die overnight if exposed to frost.
Mr Peter Ward of the Southern Herpetological Association said: "It is only a matter of time before someone is bitten by a snake or a spider not knowing what they are doing - then there will be a knee-jerk reaction."
In Tralee, a man was discovered trying to fill not once, but three times, what appeared to be a forged prescription for Rohypnol, a powerful sleeping tablet which has allegedly been used to spike drinks and render victims helpless to sexual assault.
The man's attempts to get hold of the drug occurred during a week in which the Rape Crisis Centre in Tralee announced "an alarming rise" in the local use of the drugs in rape cases, stated Kerry's Eye.
A spokesman for the Kerry Medical Association, Dr Eamon Shanahan, told Kerry's Eye there was no need for doctors to prescribe Rohynol because there were other alternatives.
This tasteless drug could be easily slipped into a drink to produce a state of amnesia so that the victim had no recollection of what happened, he said.
In response to a huge increase in the demand for services at Naas Hospital's casualty department, the hospital has erected signs warning patients of an eight-hour wait.
A Naas councillor spent from 4 p.m. until 11.35 p.m. in casualty recently with a patient complaining of chest pains. "The place was absolutely packed, you wouldn't get it in a veterinary clinic," he told the Leinster Leader.
While Swords, Co Dublin, celebrates 2,000 jobs at the new multimillion pound Swords business campus, a group of residents are celebrating a bonanza of their own. The Fingal Independent reported that Fingal County Council is to pay more than £300,000 to compensate those in Swords living near its new county hall headquarters for the loss of amenity caused by the £13 million building.
Seventeen residents are considering an offer of £18,000 each in a deal brokered by councillors who want to avoid a lengthy and potentially expensive court battle.
The Kerryman warned that priceless artefacts of the famous Kerry explorer Tom Crean, who accompanied Sir Robert Scott on his fateful Antarctic expedition, may have to be moved out of the county unless his family can find a suitable place to display the memorabilia.
"The recent scrutiny of my father's story has resulted in his belongings becoming extremely valuable," Mary Crean O'Brien told the newspaper. Letters he wrote to a friend in Scotland sold for £1,500 sterling at Christie's recently.
A priceless relic of the cross used to crucify Christ was stolen from the Holy Cross church, Killeshin, near Carlow last week. The Nationalist and Leinster Times said the relic, a gift from Rome when the church was constructed in the early 19th century, was kept in a safe in the church, along with two chalices and other vessels.
Bishop Laurence Ryan described the artefacts as being useless to the thieves but priceless for the church.