Success at races in more ways than one

LADIES of the night were on a winner at the Galway races, charging up to £550 to stay with "punter" for the night. Connacht Tribune had all the details, including a price list of services available: "£70 for oral sex, £100 for half an hour, £130 for one hour, and £550 to stay overnight in a hotel" with the aforementioned punter, a person who specialised, one presumed, in providing racing tips and horsey conversation should energies flag.

The Connacht Tribune also discovered "one Madam with a distinctly British accent was offering an attractive nineteen years old girl, tanned all over".

Garda sources estimated that such madams "may have been by far the biggest winners in a Race Week that again broke a number of records", according to the Tribune.

"One lady of the night operating on an 087 mobile phone number who was on her way back to her usual operating base in Dublin on Monday afternoon reported that "it was a fantastic Races ... as good as we ever had," it added.

There was more hanky panky in Dingle, Co Kerry, where a group of "sneaker streakers" had a busy night, reported Kerry's Eye. "Eyewitness said that the five were stark naked but that two of them wore sneakers," it said.

The men jumped on parked cars and then urinated on them, said Kerry's Eye, and one of the group was "cling filmed" to a lamp post. "Shocked and disgusted" locals said "the men spoke with cultured Dublin accents", which made one wonder what is actually meant by the expression "cultured" these days.

Dubliners enjoying rural idylls also made headlines in the Munster Express. It reported that "two rival Dublin gangs went on the rampage and clashed in a fierce battle in a Tramore nightspot over the Bank Holiday weekend. The trouble erupted in the early hours of Sunday morning and was sparked off when a youth was being ejected from the premises by security staff".

That same night, a "running battle" in Naas involved a crowd of up to 70 people and resulted in the arrest of eight, reported the Kildare Nationalist. It also reported "a big rise in drug related offences", with 9,120 recorded in the region in 1995.

The discovery of a "mini plantation of home grown cannabis plants" at Ballybeg on the outskirts of Ennis was the Clare Champion's lead story.

It prompted Bishop Willie Walsh to warn that "society must face up to the reality that drink and drugs are taking over the whole entertainment business" (well, maybe not the whole business, Galway's madam's might argue).

Within a few weeks of reaching maturity at the time of the seizure, the plants had an estimated street value of £40,000. It was the third such find in two weeks.

The success of Limerick's hurlers has inspired an unprecedented "wearing of the green", making the Limerick hurling team jersey the "hottest selling piece of merchandise" in Limerick city and county, said the Limerick Leader. Inner city young people who usually wear Manchester United, Liverpool and other Premiership club colours have been converted to the green and white.

"Look around you at the big housing estates," said Mr Steve Gleeson, director of Gleeson Sport "the young lads are out there with camans in their hands and flags are flying from the windows. That never happened before in my lifetime." Whether the hurling fever lasts past the All Ireland season is another question, suggested the newspaper.

Those in charge of spending public money would be wise to consider the fickleness of sports fever when considering 50 metre pools and the like. The Leinster Leader pictured the sole user of a public swimming pool at Newbridge, Co Kildare: one drowned rat.

"Michelle Smith's stunning Olympic performance has given rise to a hue and cry over swimming facilities in the county," said the newspaper.

"For at least one denizen of Newbridge, the lack of swimming skills proved his undoing. The drowned rat resting in the shallow end of the outdoor pool at Ryston was probably the last living being to have a swim in the public facility.

"Now filled with brown rainwater, topped by various debris including lifebelts and empty bottles and cans, it has been over 10 years since anyone else in Newbridge had a chance to swim there."

A plaque at the pool "stands as an ironic reminder" to the inability of the community to utilise the resource". "The money was subscribed by the people of Newbridge and it stands as a monument to Community Spirit and effort. May God Bless all who swim here," it says.

Swimming apathy isn't unique to Newbridge, the newspaper added. Neither Naas nor Athy swimming pools are used to their full potential and are run at a cost to the local authority.