With foot-and-mouth disease and the strike of schoolteachers dominating the regional newspapers life goes on in all its forms nevertheless.
Not surprisingly, the Sligo Champion gives front-page prominence to the street attack on the local Westlife singer, Kian Egan, in the early hours of the morning. Charges are pending.
The Leinster Express picks up the violence theme with the headline: "Yobs terrorise town pensioners."
The report by Seamus Dunne says: "Yobs are blackguarding old people living in the Coote Street-Green Road area", and a local man of 85 who wants to remain anonymous says: "We are terribly frightened. We are living in terror."
The Kilkenny People reports that "Five are in court after city rows". The report beneath the headline tells us: "A crowd of up to 400 people milled through John Street and a large number of people were arrested. Gardai were called out in force to deal with the heated scenes on the weekend before last".
The Roscommon Champion reports that two London-based brothers, home for a family funeral, were accused of being intoxicated in a public place and assaulting a hackney driver.
The Echo and South Leinster Advertiser reports that a garda giving evidence to an Enniscorthy court told of how the defendant had been "the most abusive person I have dealt with in my 36 years as a garda". The man was "completely berserk and out of control".
The defendant was sentenced to three months in prison, fined £300, disqualified from driving for two years, and fined a further £300 for dangerous driving. Bail terms were fixed in the event of an appeal.
A CLASH between church and State is covered in the Donegal People's Press. Gardai and the local parish priest are at odds over Garda action in regard to traffic congestion outside the Murlog parish church where the annual "mission" was taking place,
Father Edward Kilpatrick is reported as telling his parishioners from the pulpit: "The action of gardai caused a lot of upset and was totally uncalled for."
A spokesman for the Garda told the paper: "There was serious obstruction outside the church when the gardai arrived. They had to clear the road as a number of lorries and cars were backed up.
"The gardai, with the help of other motorists, physically moved the cars to one side to allow the traffic through."
The People's Press also gives front-page coverage to the death of the chairman of Donegal County Council, Mr Charlie Bennett, at a St Patrick's Day parade in Brooklyn. The paper's editorial also mourns his untimely death.
The Waterford News and Star reports another clash, this time between the local Sinn Fein organisation, gardai and Waterford Corporation. Sinn Fein, the paper reports, favours support for the establishment of community patrols "in two areas of Ballybeg which they [Sinn Fein] say have been abandoned by both the Garda and the corporation".
Supt Michael McGarry is reported as saying he was "appalled that a so-called democratic political party would be mooting what amounted to vigilante groups and accused Sinn Fein of stigmatising Ballybeg, where there were a lot of decent people and just a small minority of wrongdoers".
Concern continues to be expressed in many regional newspapers about the pending closure of rural post offices. The Offaly Independent says, in its editorial: "From time to time, when there are threatened rural post office closures, it takes a major battle and lobbying exercise to get authority to see reason and to acknowledge the importance of this essential institution".
The editorial says that a report, soon to be published, "may indicate that it will require £70 million in subsidies up to the year 2005 to keep the rural post offices open".
THE Westmeath Examiner turns its editorial attention to the "Prison System and Rehabilitation".
The editorial goes on to say: "There is a school of thought which suggests that the modus operandi is moving more and more towards locking people up as a solution to keeping crime down, while others aver that there should be more emphasis on rehabilitation rather than incarceration".
The paper quotes Father Fergal McDonagh, a chaplain at Arbour Hill prison, who says: "Too much emphasis is placed on retribution and vengeance than on restorative justice."
The Guardian reports that a Nenagh boy, 11-year-old Donnacha Dodd, has received a colour poster of the golfer Tiger Woods.
It is signed by the great golfer himself, who writes: "To Donnacha Dodd. Get well soon and always remain positive. Your friend, Tiger Woods."
Donnacha was injured in a stampede for autographs when Woods played in a golf outing in Limerick last year and failed to get an autograph but now treasures the signed poster as well as a signed baseball cap which now hangs over his bed.
Golf also features on the front page of the Drogheda Independent which celebrates the fact that local player, Des Smyth, has become the oldest man to win a European golf tour event after his victory in the Madeira Island Open last week.