"MIGHTY Mayo chasing Sam" declared the Western People.
"Maughan's Army has `Sam' in their sights", said the Mayo News. "Move her Kerry, we're going for the Sam Maguire Cup!" boasted the People.
The Connaught Telegraph headlined a GAA warning on "quick buck merchants" who will try to make money on the success of the Mayo team.
Because that is what it's really all "Money, money, money!" as the Limerick Leader boasted. So much is at stake that the "high flying" Limerick hurlers have adopted the Abba hit as their "team" song. And like the Swedish pop group who sang Money, Money, Money Limerick's hurlers are "laughing all the way to the bank", as "money rolls in to Limerick's hurling war chest".
They must be sweating in their training boots down in Kerry because according to the Kerryman, "Kerry GAA bosses are attempting to poach top players from other counties in a bid to raise the county's flagging football fortunes".
"Kerry County Board chairman, Sean Kelly, admitted that the County Board approached leading players in other counties in a bid to get them to wear the green and gold to end Kerry's 10 year All Ireland famine."
Mary Young told the Sligo Champion of her "joy and elation" at being reunited with her family 39 years after leaving St Laurence's orphanage, Sligo for a life in England. Mary (54), who traced her family with the help of a nun, has discovered some extraordinary things while piecing together her family history. One revelation was that her family ran a successful business close to the orphanage and her mother and grandmother had actually taken other girls from the orphanage on outings, but tragically for Mary, never her.
She remembers being six years old and dressed in a blue dress and patent shoes. She thought that something special was going to happen, perhaps she was going to meet her mother or be adopted.
"A nun rushed in and said I was to get out of the clothes, I was the wrong child," she said.
The Tipperary Star's headline, "Frightened nuns lash breakdown of morality" referred to the children who have been gathering daily at the Convent of Mercy grounds in Nenagh "to get their kicks out of frightening and taunting nuns".
Boys and girls as young as eight have "exposed themselves to nuns, pelted nuns with stones and apples, broken up convent property, including windows at the chapel and disturbed crosses in the convent graveyard".
A happier time was being had by nuns of the Poor Clares' Order from around the world who have congregated in Multyfarnham for a spiritual renewal course. The nuns, who are not allowed to look at television, listen to radio or read newspapers, have been experiencing "special treats" such as cycling through the village, said the Westmeath Examiner. One nun in her 50s made her first phone call ever while in Multyfarnham.
THE BSE scare is causing a "new farm crisis" for farmers in the west, said the Connacht Tribune. Cattle prices are "taking a hammering at the marts by more than £200 per head in what has been described as one of the greatest crises ever to hit farming".
Sometimes a picture says it all. The Clare Champion showed a middle aged farmer and a pensive young boy whose solemn expressions, it said, summed up "the current gloom in farming" at the Clare marts, Ennis.
"Farmer fury as BSE crisis hits Clare," said the headline, reporting that farmers face a massive 40 per cent drop in incomes.
Mia Farrow's arrival in the west made several newspaper headlines, including the Connacht Tribune's "Some Like it Hot even if it means warming Lough Corrib". The actress was required to spend many hours standings waist deep in the Corrib while shooting the film, Angela Mooney Dies Again. So to ease her discomfort, the crew heated water in an oil burner on the shore and then piped it to where she was standing.
Finally, a bad joke has been circulating among some of the local newspaper reporters, among them the Midland Tribune's Ciaran Mullooly. "It's not my joke," he apologised after laying the blame on a reporter from the Kildare Nationalist. It's not mine either, but here goes.
"A farmer was told that he should notify relatives of the death of his wife by putting an ad in the local paper.
"What's the cheapest advertisement you have?" he asked.
"£5 for three words," said the receptionist.
"OK, put this in. Mary Leahy dead."
"The receptionist pointed out that he should add a few more details and that he could have six words for £7.50."
"All right then," said the farmer. "Mary Leahy dead. Hay for sale."