The Leinster Leader's exclusive lead had all the tension and enigma of a good thriller. Except that it was real and it exposed the suffering of parents who have been going through torture for the past five months, since their daughter disappeared.
Michael and Bernadette Jacob, the distraught parents of missing Newbridge woman Deirdre Jacob (19), appealed to a "mystery man" who may have vital information to come forward after a tantalising unsigned letter was sent to the newspaper last week. The man first contacted the Leinster Leader newsroom by phone on September 8th, 1998, and since then has made several more phone calls to media and gardai, and one short call to the Jacobs themselves, the newspaper said. In the latest letter, which was posted in Lisnaskea, Co Fermanagh, on Monday, January 4th, he repeats his claim that he gave a woman matching Ms Jacob's description a lift from Clane to Carrick macross in Co Monaghan on July 28th, the day she disappeared. "I ask the people of Carrickmacross to take it from here and help you. Someone in Carrick knows something," said the anonymous letter-writer. "We are a family in grave difficulties," said Michael Jacob. "We have lost our daughter. There is this man, a family man, in Co Fermanagh who seems to have some information about a girl.
"There were a number of calls and now the letter and we're still no nearer to knowing one way or the other whether it was Deirdre or another girl.
"What we want this man to do, one family to another, is to meet us anytime, anywhere on his own terms, just to sit down and talk," said Mr Jacob.
The Kerryman's lead story also described a real-life drama. A former drug-dealer, Mr Michael Bentley (33), was convinced he was going to die when he was abducted by a suspected IRA gang dressed in Garda uniforms, forced to run for miles over country roads with a pillowcase over his head, laid in a three-foot hole and told he was going to be shot. Security sources told the Kerryman they believed the kidnapping incident was purely a publicity stunt and that more such events would follow in coming months.
The Ballymena Guardian said that the people of Northern Ireland were "riding on the crest of a wave of optimism and are more positive about the next millennium than anyone else in Britain, according to new research". The Royal Mail Millennium Collection Study found that 37 per cent of Northerners feel happy and excited about 2000 and only 5 per cent admit feeling anxious about the future.
The Munster Express's headline - "Casualties of `Billy Clinton problem' seek asylum in city" - brought to mind an exodus of southern US women with big hair and tales to tell, escaping the talk shows and the tabloids for the safety of quaint Waterford. In fact, the refugees were the first Iraqis to seek asylum in the south-east since the December bombings of Iraq by the US and the UK.
An influx of jet-setting gamblers is probably not what the late Monsignor James Horan, the champion of Knock Airport, envisaged. But Richard Finn, an Independent member of Mayo County Council, wants Knock Airport to be the home of Ireland's first licensed casino, said the Western People. Imagine Knock as the Celtic Monaco and you get the idea.