Wanted: a wealthy wife fit for a high king

DOWN in Killaloe, Co Clare, they're looking for a wife fit for a high king. A "strong stomach is required for the job as the bride must able to cope with the expected kidnap attempt in the run up to the nuptials, the Clare Champion, told us.

"Brian Boru have been hacked to death on the battlefield of Clontarf, in 1014 but there's still life in the old devil!" it said. "Candidates for his hand must be filthy rich and able to hold their own in the rigours of court life."

It all has something to do with the Feile Brian Boru which the twin towns of Killaloe and Ballina will be hosting in July.

Clare's political clout nearly a millennium after Brian Boru's demise is at an "all time low", the Clare Champion said. That's the unequivocal view of Ennis and Shannon Chambers of Commerce, which have delivered a "stinging rebuke" to Junior Minister, Donal Carey and Labour deputy, Moosajee Bhamjee over the absence of local representation on the recently appointed board of the Shannon Development Company.

A man who claimed he was relieving himself inside a shed when a farmer knocked it down with a tractor told his story in Galway District Court last week. According to the Connacht Tribune's report, the incident occurred when a farmer became so angry at a travelling family who refused to move a shed off the edge of his land that he got up before 7 a.m. to knock the shed over.

It seems to have become traditional in the Republic that as the summer evenings lengthen, the animosity against travellers intensifies. In Naas the "traveller crisis" led to an "all night vigil" staged by angry residents intent on preventing the local authority from settling travellers on their estate, said the Leinster Leader.

And as Sligo County Council presses ahead with plans for a refurbished halting site at Ballyfree, a local Sligo action group has asked building contractors to boycott the project, said the Sligo Champion.

Sligo Borough Council is opening two other new halting sites, meanwhile, but the Mayor, Mr Matt Lyons, believes this will not solve the accommodation problem. One halt is for "transients" and the other for "traders" and it is, allegedly, impossible to tell the two groups apart. Mr Lyons wants the Government "to help local authorities prevent travellers playing games with the system".

The upsurge in parents' desire for religious integration in Northern schools made headlines in two Northern newspapers. The Down Recorder quoted Mr John Taylor MP as saying it was "outrageous" that it costs £5,000 annually to bus children from Killyleagh to an integrated school six miles away - resulting in a financial crisis for two local primary schools which need more pupils to overcome their budget problems.

The Ballymena Guardian, on the other hand, had an upbeat report that campaigners for integrated education are "over the moon" at hearing that the doors to Ballymena's first integrated secondary school will open as scheduled in September at a greenfield site on the Larne Road. The pupil intake in September will total 83 and 79 of the parents of these pupils made the school their first choice, showing "a big leap of faith" on the part of parents and pupils.

THERE was a new twist on the tradition of comely maidens dancing at the crossroads when more than 150 maids and youths were searched at a "rave party" on the shores of Lough Ree. Gardai seized a "significant quantity" of ecstasy and cannabis, said the Westmeath Independent. The Tipperary Star, meanwhile, said "Nenagh's drugs problem is reaching crisis point, with illegal substances now being sold openly in certain pubs and niteclubs (sic) in the town."

One little piglet, wandering all alone, made the front page of the Anglo Celt. The pig escaped when a gang of Northern Irish "rasher" rustlers made off with 400 piglets under two weeks old worth £10,000 from a piggery near Ballyconnell.

Supt John Kelly said that if they could persuade the little pig that escaped to talk in Babe like fashion, they would be on the "pig's back" in relation to solving the crime.

An artist nearly became "stuck in time" on the edge of the motorway outside Naas last week.

Remco de Fouw was painting symbols on an enormous orb which curious motorists refer variously to as "the big ball", "the yoke" and "the thing", when he became imprisoned within it, said the Kildare Nationalist. Fortunately for Mr de Fouw, he was accompanied by another painter, who called the fire brigade. Otherwise, his "cries for help would have gone unheard as the speeding motorway traffic whizzed past and he could have forever been lost in a time warp," the newspaper said.