Carryduff’s Caitriona in final of Miss Earth

Carryduff’s Caitriona in final of Miss Earth

18 May 2016

A CARRYDUFF student has been named as a finalist in a beauty pageant with a touch of green.

Twenty one year-old Caitriona McCaffrey has been chosen as this year’s Miss Earth County Down, a worldwide competition which uses the beauty pageant platform to promote environmental issues. 

Although she has done some modelling in the past, Caitriona said it was the environmental aspect of Miss Earth that encouraged her to enter her first pageant, which she discovered on Facebook.

At first dubious about committing to the competition because of the scale of the undertaking, the keen animal lover and vegetarian said she eventually decided to give it a go because she was excited about the potential opportunity to promote her own environmental message.

She said she was delighted to qualify and now hoped to use her title to promote the beauty of Down while campaigning for environmental issues through her role in the competition.

The Queen’s University student is currently reading English with a view to doing a poetry Masters and later qualifying as a teacher.

In a nod to her future career, she said was particularly keen to spread the message of environmental awareness among young children.

“There is already a focus on environmental issues at GCSE stage and I think it is important to spread that message among younger children of primary school age,” she said.

“If you are made aware at a young age it can shape who you become as an adult. That will be the focus of my environmental message; to spread the importance of being environmentally aware to young children.”

Caitriona said the Northern Ireland finalists of Miss Earth, which she described as one of the top three world pageants alongside Miss World and Miss Universe, were currently being evaluated by judges and would face a judging panel before The Miss Earth Northern Ireland final on July 17 in the City Hotel Derry.

The winner will then be entered into the International Miss Earth final, the location of which has yet to be finalised.