Red-haired, 16-year-old model of blooming Irish womanhood, Niamh Tyrrell wouldn't have looked out of place on a nostalgic John Hinde postcard. Instead, she found herself on the front page of the Nationalist and Leinster Times, Carlow, where she has been gaining "work experience". And what an experience. Going undercover, she was served alcohol by four out of six pubs tested by the Nationalist in Carlow town on Friday, February 5th.
The newspaper's survey "confirms long-held suspicions that under-age drinking is rife in Carlow town and if young people want to drink alcohol they have no problem getting it," wrote Suzanne Pender. "A selection of drinks, from vodka to coke, to bottles of Budweiser, were purchased easily by the 16-year-old, who was accompanied by her 15-year-old friend."
Niamh was asked for ID by doormen in three out of six premises and was refused entry to just two. The rejections didn't stop her social life, "which quickly resumed, with four other watering holes only too willing to serve the youngster alcohol". In a page-one comment, "Time to take our heads out of the sand", the Nationalist predicted that the voluntary age card scheme, which is to become law in three months' time, will not stop under-age drinking. "Until there is a scheme in place compelling both the young person to produce ID and the publican to demand one, the problem of under-age drinking in Ireland will not go away. Furthermore, until parents adopt a sense of responsibility and inquire where their 14, 15 or 16-year-old pride and joy are going at 10 p.m. on Friday or Saturday night, the problem of under-age drinking will not go away." In a separate development, gardai "feared for the life" of a 16-year-old youth found "practically unconscious" from drink in an open space in Carlow on the following night, February 6th. "The youth was so drunk we were afraid to send him to hospital by ambulance and had to put a watch on him until his parents arrived," said a garda.
Continuing reports of attempted abductions of children and teenage girls by men in vans suggest a mood of anxiety, perhaps even hysteria, in some areas of the State.
Most recently, in the Donegal People's Press, gardai warned teenagers and young women to be "extra vigilant" after dark and said that "since before Christmas", the number of reported attempted abductions around Letterkenny had shown a dramatic increase.
In the Midland Tribune, the perpetrators of two alleged harassment incidents were men in jeeps, who jumped out and approached the girls they had been following. "Local TDs unite on need for sex offender register," said the Bray People, launching its own campaign for a sex offender register. Its front page editorial asked readers to sign the newspaper's petition to the Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue.
It bolstered its editorial stance with the information that gardai were investigating seven attempted abductions in the Bray area and 90 across the State - but suggested that there were far more incidents. There had been a "flurry of calls" to the Bray People "from readers who claimed they had knowledge of other similar incidents which had not been reported to the gardai," said the newspaper.
The Corkman said that a publican was jailed for one month for kicking a three-year-old boy, despite a plea from the victim's mother to drop the case. "That's what you get for kicking a child," said Judge Michael Patwell. The boy had been playing in a car-park behind the defendant's premises when the incident occurred. The Kerryman reported that the Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams, was snubbed by local business people, forcing the Tralee Chamber of Commerce to cancel a breakfast briefing at which he was due to speak. "Councillors clash over Sunday football", said the Ballymena Guardian. The borough council has organised, at a cost of £46,000 sterling, an international under-15s football tournament to take place at the end of April. "In a vintage display of the behaviour which won them a province-wide reputation, members of the Democratic Unionist Party on Ballymena Borough Council have claimed that an international youth soccer tournament at the town's show-grounds venue will violate Biblical principles," said the newspaper.
What is it they say about politicians being anxious to be seen with children and animals when elections are in the air? John Bruton, looking downcast on the front page of the Meath Chronicle, was bemoaning the debt crisis of the Meath branch of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The Department of Justice owes it £36,000 for looking after horses at the request of gardai.