Here's one that will run and run: "Accepting that it is never safe to generalise on any issue, how many of our readers have noted the rudeness of some - and we stress `some' - of our visitors from the Six Counties?" asked the Western People.
"It does not give us any particular satisfaction to report that three cases of oafish Northern behaviour has [sic] been brought to our attention in recent weeks, coinciding with the welcome influx of visitors from the North," it continued.
The first case involved a twentysomething Northern man who caused a traffic jam in the seaside town of Enniscrone, refused to move, used expletives and gave people "the finger".
In an east Mayo restaurant, "a man occupied a spare table, then got up to go to the counter to place his order. When he returned his table had been claimed by four Northern visitors who informed him in no uncertain terms that it was their table".
In the final incident, witnessed by the leader-writer (do we presume the other two cases were hearsay?), "an elderly Northern visitor took immediate umbrage at being challenged by a local when he dumped litter on a street one Sunday around noon although a litter bin was clearly visible. When the complainant threatened to summon gardai, the litterbug told the complainant `in no uncertain terms where to stick said gardai' ".
The Western People asked: "Are all these instances symptomatic of the disregard for authority or a breakdown in civilised behaviour in the Six Counties?"
Assaults and criminal damage are on the increase in the North, according to the Impartial Reporter, although police are attributing this to increased reporting.
But visitors to the Republic seem more in danger from locals than the other way around. Two British brothers, aged 16 and 17, were "savagely attacked" in Ballinrobe by youths trying to sell them drugs, said the Connaught Telegraph.
A 20-year-old American tourist was slashed with a bottle while holidaying with his mother, a native of Creeslough, Co Donegal, reported the Donegal Democrat.
Other signs of "disregard for authority" were in Waterford, where 14-year-olds in school uniforms are calling to a city-centre house where drugs are "being sold right under the noses of the gardai," claimed the Waterford News & Star. "Meanwhile in Faran Park, three individuals are blatantly selling drugs in front of their neighbours and rave parties continue until dawn."
"Loutish behaviour" in Enniscorthy town centre by people who sleep all day and party all night at the weekend caused serious disruption to the sleeping patterns of residents of the area, said the Echo.
No place is safe: the Connaught Telegraph revealed that Mayo General Hospital has appointed security personnel to protect medical and nursing staff from attacks by patients. And at Castlebar Garda station, "cool-thinking officers defused a major crisis when a man with a loaded shotgun" walked into the station, creating a drama unprecedented in the history of the Garda force in the region, reported the Telegraph.
In the Kilkenny People, a mother warned, "For God's sake, mind your children", after her nine-year-old daughter and niece escaped an abduction attempt by three men in a van, who offered them inducements to "go for a spin".
An "old woman of old Limerick stock" stopped a Limerick Leader journalist on O'Connell Street and asked: "Is there nothing ye can do to get rid of them fellas?" As she spoke, she was gesturing towards black passersby.
"No, Ma'am, the Limerick Leader will not be trying to `get rid of them fellas', whether asylum-seekers or other categories of immigrant," the paper commented. "On the contrary, we will be encouraging as many as possible to sink roots here and raise families."
Immigrants, it believed, enriched the community, "not only morally but socially, culturally, economically and in every other way."
"Give them a chance," entreated the Nationalist and Munster Advertiser above a picture of Clogheen, Co Tipperary's first refugees, Jo and Dituvinda Kitoko from Angola, who were forced to leave behind a six-year-old daughter as they fled civil war.
The couple, whose only visitors have been a local curate and a local garda, showed the Nationalist a "ludicrous" threepage document intended to help them settle in Clogheen. It included a "badly photocopied" map of Ireland and two pages of contact numbers, most meaningless to Jo and his wife who need to get their £15 social welfare.