Mayo woman on Irish team for international fly-fishing contest

Julie McGeever, who lives in Foxford, will be casting a fly-fishing line on the Lake of Menteith in Perthshire, Scotland, next week in the hope of bringing home gold medals with the Ireland ladies international fly-fishing team.

Julie has been fly-fishing for almost 30 years having taken it up on the lakes of Cullin and Conn in Mayo after she came back from Sydney, Australia, in the early ’90s to run Healy’s Hotel, Pontoon. In 1989 her husband Brendan, from Swinford, bought Healy’s Hotel, a renowned angling hotel in the west of Ireland.

Having no experience of angling, let alone fly-fishing, Julie was introduced to game angling by the guests at Healy’s Hotel after her arrival in Pontoon. Her near neighbour, the late Ann Geary, who owned the Pontoon Bridge Hotel, had founded the Irish Ladies Fly-fishing Association in 1990, and ran the first Ladies Fly-fishing International Championship in Ireland on Lough Conn in 1993.

Ann introduced Julie to team fishing and the Irish Ladies Fly-fishing Association, and she has been an involved and committed member of the association since 1993, and fished with Team Ireland at internationals in England. Scotland, Wales and Ireland for 21 internationals

This year will be Julie’s 13th cap for Ireland in international fly-fishing having also been a reserve for a number of internationals and team coordinator/manager.

Julie is originally from Freshford, Co. Kilkenny, and lived in Sydney, Australia, for over 20 years, where she met her Swinford-born husband Brendan. They have three children who live in New York and in Sussex, England. Julie commutes regularly to both locations to see her children and grandchildren.

She works as a lecturer in communications at the Technological University of Dublin at the Aungier Street Campus, commuting between Foxford and Dublin on a weekly basis.

When not commuting to Dublin or further afield to the US or the UK, she can be found fishing on the local lakes of Lough Cullin or Lough Conn, or on the River Moy in Foxford. Julie is a member of the Foxford Angling Club and the Lough Conn and Cullin Anglers.

From May 23 to 26, Julie and 12 other ladies from all parts of Ireland will travel to Lake of Menteith in Scotland and face into tough competition representing Ireland in the International Ladies Fly-Fishing Competition. The ladies have held training days on local lakes and are feeling ready for the challenge.