Alice Conba
As far back as I can remember I have been interested in handcrafts. When I was 4 years old I learned to crochet. At 14 I watched my late father struggling with making a fishing fly and said I could do it easily.But I couldn't. In those days there were no videos or television programmes so I had to teach myself. When I was 17 I won the first All Ireland Amateur Fly Dressing Competition. After that I decided to become a professional fly dresser.
In the early 1960s we set up a fly manufacturing venture, employing ten local girls, distributing flies all over the world....to Iceland, England, Australia, New Zealand, the US., Ireland , but mostly to DAM. of Germany. For those years we were producing 1200 flies each day.
In 1989, when I visited my family in the Bay Area in California I saw, for the first time, other fly dressers at work other than my father and the girls I had taught. Over the years I have found ways of making tying easy and I continue to discover new techniques.
In 1992 we opened a little fly shop in Cahir, Co. Tipperary, where the famous river Suir (pronounced Sure) runs through it. There I met man fishermen face to face on a daily basis and the knowledge I gained there has been invaluable to me. It was during that time that my husband, Noel, devised a way to create three dimensional fly frames.
I have demonstrated in various places..Fly Fair in Holland, Germany, Norway, England and here at home. I was the first Irish woman to demonstrate my work at the Sportsman's Exposition in San Mateo, California and have done so a few times in Golden Gate Angling and Casting Club, San Fransisco of which I am a life member.
I now reside in Tipperary Town and anyone wishing to see me at my fly dressing is welcome to call....It's not along way....