Athlone girl's cat a big winner at Dublin championships
Adrian Cusack
A six-year-old girl from Athlone is one of the country's proudest pet owners after her beloved cat, Emelia, won several awards at the Dublin Championship Cat Show last Sunday.
Roisin McCoy, who is in senior infants at St Mary's National School, played a huge role in the success because of the way she grooms and looks after her feline friend.
The local girl even received national media attention when a photo of her hugging her cat at the event in Dublin was published on the front page of Monday's Irish Times.
The paw-sitive news was the talk of her school on Monday morning, as Roisin displayed the three trophies and seven rosettes which her pet earned the previous day.
How did her classmates react when they heard about the success?
"When I showed them the rosettes they were just saying: woah!" she exclaimed.
Emilia is a nine-month-old British shorthair cat who hailed from Cavan before making the move to live with Roisin and her younger sister Maebh in Shannon Weir, Athlone.
She was named "reserve best in show and best British shorthair champion" at the event last weekend.
Roisin described Emilia as a "really cute" and friendly cat who doesn't scratch.
Her mother, Yanna de Menezes, explained that Roisin has been fascinated by cats ever since she was a toddler. "Her first word was cat, and she wanted a cat since she was a little baby," said Yanna.
"We always said, when you're older, when you're six, you can have a cat so we bought her this cat, a British shorthair.
"Roisin really looks after her, she wipes her ears and cleans her eyes and she always wanted to put her in a cat competition."
Emelia was entered into last weekend's competition with little expectation of winning, because many owners of the other entrants were involved in breeding cats or were pampering them with expensive products.
"We never did anything fancy for the cat. We gave her normal supermarket food and everything," said Yanna.
"I wasn't expecting to win anything, but (the judges) just loved her and were very impressed with Roisin for taking such good care of her," said Yanna.
"They said her fur is perfect, she's very sweet, very good temperament, very clean and they were amazed that Roisin was always grooming her and taking care of her," said Roisin's delighted Mum.
The Dublin Championship Cat Show has been taking place in Knocklyon Community Centre for the last two years and features a wide variety of pedigree and house cats.