The compleat angler

When Walter Phelan realised how hard it was to find out about his favourite sport he set about providing a solution, writes Berna Cox.

Attanna, in Co Laois, is much like any other Irish village, apart from one notable difference. Housed in a building with an unremarkable exterior is a remarkable collection of fishing and game-sport memorabilia.

Known as the Irish Fly Fishing and Game Shooting Museum, the collection boasts more than 4,500 items, displayed in 10 rooms - the only collection of its kind in the country.

And it's all the work of one man. Walter Phelan, a local carpenter, has single-handedly built up the collection and, indeed, the building. Using mostly salvaged materials, he has lovingly restored the museum's premises from a ruin into a tasteful and appropriate home for the comprehensive collection.

He continues to work but spends at least 70 hours a week, he says, working on the museum, from cataloguing and displaying to hammering and building.

The museum opened in 1998, but the spadework began as far back as 1979. A magazine article about a Limerick fishing-rod maker sowed the seed. It remarked that there was nowhere in Ireland to research Irish fishing-tackle makers. "That," says Phelan, "stuck in my mind." He decided to do something about it.

In 1990 he inherited a rundown building in the picturesque village. "It really was in a bad state of repair," he says. As he started to clear the building he found seven brass fishing reels in a hole in the wall. One had the name "Kelly of Dublin" on it. He started to research the firm, and "one thing led on to another".

He now has 200 reels, 100 rods, 7,000 flies, 800 books, 80 animal traps, numerous photographs and letters, murals, trophies, boats and all manner of things associated with the history of fishing and game shooting. He is particularly proud of the Lissadell House rod, which was owned by Sir Robert Gore-Booth, having been made in Dublin by Mallow and Ettingsall in about 1840, not long after Lissadell was built.

Some of the collection has been donated, but Phelan has bought most of it. He goes to auctions and dealers, keeps an eye on the papers and travels to fairs to make his purchases. He got a small grant from the local development programme but mostly funds the refurbishment, maintenance and stock himself. Museums, he says, don't make money, so he continues his carpentry to fund his hobby. He longs for the day when his hobby can be his work.

In the very early days it was, he says, quite frustrating: he had to work to fund the project, so he couldn't be there to open the museum. Happily, in 2001, he met a local fly-tying enthusiast called Jimmy Tyrrell, who, having been made redundant, wanted to try fly-tying commercially. Tyrrell needed a premises and Phelan needed an extra pair of hands. It works very well: Tyrrell has a free workshop at the museum, in return for which he opens up and acts as guide. Phelan goes to work.

Looking around at the quality of the exhibits and the workmanship, I suggest it's a remarkable achievement. He acknowledges the help and support of donors and of organisations such as the National Association of Regional Game Councils and the Laois Leader Regional Development Company.

"It's a labour of love," he says. "But what it really is," he adds, with a work-weary smile, "is pure madness."

The Irish Fly Fishing and Game Shooting Museum, Attanna, Co Laois, 0502-36112