Pauline amongst best Irish anglers at debut international

Pauline with one of the brown trout - caught in a national competition at Lough Corrib last year - that helped earn her international call-up.

Pauline McCleneghan was last month one of Ireland’s best performing fly fishers in her debut Ladies international in Snowdonia.

She marked her first cap with an impressive haul of four trout, helping Ireland to a third place finish in what proved an extremely close competition.

The Waterside resident - a native of Creggan originally - took time out from her day job supporting young parents at the Springtown-based Lifestart Foundation - to compete at the surreally beautiful Trawsfynydd lake in Wales, which as well as providing great trout-fishing, was once used to cool the Magnox reactors of a now-obsolete lakeside nuclear power station.

Pauline explains: “It’s a very interesting place. It was a nuclear power plant. The lake was constructed to cool the reactor. They flooded three Welsh valleys back in the sixties. It’s actually very beautiful.

Staff from Helm Housing teamed up with local residents to leave Longlands Court in Newtownabbey spick and span recently as part of Keep Northern Ireland Beautiful's BIG Spring Clean. Nine members of Helms staff got together with local people and contractors to brighten up Longlands Court and improve the appearance of the public areas. The clean-up included the removal of graffiti, clearing weeds, washing pathways, clearing rubbish and the provision of shrubs and hanging baskets for green-fingered residents to grow flowers. Pictured are Alison McBride from Helm Housing and Ruth Van Ry from Keep Northern Ireland Beautiful with Helm Housing staff and local clean-up volunteers. INNT 21-516CON

“They’ve stocked it with rainbow trout. It’s in a very beautiful location with all the mountains.”

It’s been a fairly remarkable twelve months for Londonderry’s newest international, who until last year, hadn’t any experience whatsoever in the ‘loch-syle’ trout-fishing discipline.

It was only by happenstance, in fact, whilst searching for fly fishing tackle via the internet, that she stumbled across the Irish Ladies Flyfishing Association, and things evolved from there.

“I put in an email for further information and a girl called Susan Brown from Lisburn got in touch with me,” she says. “The type of fishing they do is called ‘loch-style,’ which is where you are out on the lake in a boat.”

The Irish Ladies Fly Fishing Association team at a pre-tournament training event at Courtlough in north County Dublin.