Frightened off by Northern troubles
September 1982
Teams from Yugoslavia, Portugal, Italy and Denmark have all pulled out of the World Shore Angling Championships to be held in Wexford next week, out of fear we are ‘ too close’ to the ongoing troubles in the North.
The local organising committee has moved to assure the angling associations in those countries that their teams are most unlikely to be in any danger were they to visit Wexford as planned, but all to no avail. The competition will now go ahead with just fifty fisherman from five countries, instead of the approximately twice that number that should have been the case.
This is the second time this year that violence in Northern Ireland has scared away foreign visitors. In June, nearly 200 delegates from across the continent refused to travel to the European Junior Chamber conference in Wexford, for the same reason.
Organisers of the prestigious angling event, local members of the Irish Federation of Sea Anglers, were reluctant to discuss the matter this week.
However, they pointed out that anglers from West Germany, France, Spain, Holland and Ireland would still compete.
Meanwhile, politics has ended the participation of a team from Switzerland. They were angered that a South African team was banned from competing because of the apartheid policies in place in that country.
The famously neutral Swiss argued that the World organising body, the CIPS (Confederation Internationale de la Peche), should not have taken such a political stance against the South African team, and when CIPS refused to back down, the Swiss pulled out in protest.
Switzerland, with no shoreline of its own, was not expected to have been in contention for honours at the championships in any event, but the withdrawal of the other teams is being seen as a great loss.
Next week’s event will be the first world championships ever, and Wexford has been chosen as the venue because many species of fish are plentiful in the waters off our coastline at this time of year.
The competition will take place at Ballinesker on Thursday (6 p.m. to midnight), Carne on Friday (also 6 p.m. to midnight), and The Hook on Saturday (10 a.m. to 4 p.m.)