Santa not my area of expertise, says doubting priest

As festive stories go, the tale of the Priest who Stole Christmas was not one the locals of Lixnaw wanted broadcast, for reasons every parent understands.

And so yesterday a veil of silence was drawn over the quiet rural parish in North Kerry, which made headlines in the wake of controversial comments by a priest during a school talk.

Fr Martin Hegarty mistakenly claimed the Man from the North Pole was about as tangible a character as the animals in the manger. His superior in Rome recently demoted these animals from the Nativity on the basis that they weren’t really there.