Let no one say they aren't at the cutting edge of fashion in Ballyhaunis, Co Mayo. One of the town's sons, James Waldron, of Delvis, has been appointed design director with Giorgio Armani, the "world's top fashion designer", according to the Ballyhaunis district notes and weekly news roundup in the Connaught Telegraph.
James won the post as a result of sheer hard work and ambition, according to his proud mother, Mary Waldron. James's late father was a member of the Ballyhaunis Gaelic football team which won the Mayo senior championship in 1958.
Children as young as 14 are risking their lives every weekend on the forestry roads of Donegal in illegal rallying of sub-standard cars that have failed the National Car Test, stated the Donegal Democrat. Since the introduction of the test, large numbers of cars are being sold to children aged from 14 to 16, say gardai. After the rallies, the teenagers set fire to the cars.
Michael McGarrigle, chairman of the Cashelard Development Association, stated: "I have seen them driving, trying to overtake on the forestry road, and it seems that they tumble the cars on a regular basis. Judging by the appearance of the cars, they certainly don't spend all their time on four wheels."
The farming community in rural areas of the North "feels that life has nothing to offer", warned the Impartial Reporter in its front-page lead. "A veneer of depression hangs over the farming community as families in rural areas struggle to cope with the enforced changes in their livelihood," says the Church of Ireland Dean of Clogher, the Very Rev Thomas Moore.
Writing in a report of the board of social responsibility at the General Synod in Belfast, the dean says "there is an overload of bureaucracy and paperwork generated by regulations and legislation. Farmers and their families living in isolated homes - on the land handed down to them from generations past - are seeing their heritage being slowly evaporated . . . Farmers, wives and young family members are being forced out to look for other employment and work to assist in the budgeting and running costs of maintaining the farm".
Commenting on the "crisis" in farming, the Munster Express called on Munster MEPs to "get more involved in defending Irish farmer interests, so that beef, lamb, pig and dairy prices are maintained at the present level of subsidy. The drift from the land will only increase if some of the subsidies are withdrawn."
The Nationalist and Leinster Times told of a "tragic farm death" which occurred when a 20-year-old man tried to rescue two kittens from the family's hayshed. Edward White, who was home studying for exams at Tallaght Institute of Technology, fell between a gap in the bales and the wall and suffocated.
Enniscorthy will become a "dead" town if all-in-one, underselling hyperstores owned by international business concerns are allowed to develop on its outskirts, warned the Echo. Councillor Keith Doyle, a local businessman, says he will vote against the entire draft Enniscorthy development plan on this single issue alone.
The Argus reported that a £21.5 million claim for compensation has been lodged with Louth County Council by developers - the Belfast-based Sears - which were refused permission for a factory outlet centre at Ballymascanlon roundabout. Councillor Fergus O'Dowd described the move as "disgraceful and an attempt to intimidate public representatives".
In the Longford Leader, an alleged victim of Donal Dunne, a former school teacher and child sex abuser convicted in a Kilkenny court last week, has appealed to other victims to come forward. "There are certainly more people who suffered in Lanesboro and if they were even half as abused as I was, they will have suffered greatly," stated the victim. "How he could move from school to school is incredible," said the victim, who is refusing co-operate with the Government's Commission of Inquiry Into Child Abuse.
This inquiry was not geared towards victims - it was geared towards the protection of the system, he said. He and other victims object to the manner in which the Department of Education is investigating itself, as complaints made to the Department in 1969 were never brought any further.
The Mayo News revealed that an Englishman who used another person's credit card number to fund a two-week "shopping spree" in Westport, Co Mayo, received a six-month sentence at a sitting of the local district court. Stuart Keith West, of Hertfordshire, spent more than £2,000 during his "holiday" in Westport, staying in seven hotels under the name "John Waters".