There were golden swims from Caragh Leonard and Ellie McCartney at the 2016 Swim Ireland Irish Minor Schools Championship which took place on Sunday at the National Aquatic Centre in Dublin. 
The dynamic duo won double golds each, producing a brilliant series of swims against some of the top young swimmers in the country. 
Caragh was representing Mount Lourdes while Ellie represented the Model PS while four Fermanagh schools were represented in total following the swimmers’ qualification at the regional Minor Schools galas.
Ellie McCartney represented the Enniskillen Model Primary School for the second year running and was seeded third and first respectively in her events. 
 Ellie has remained unbeaten since 2014 over 50m, 100m and 200m breaststroke events in her age group and sometimes above, but it was going to take a lot more than a new PB in the Individual Medley to reach the top spot. Ellie loves a challenge and was a close third after butterfly, she crept into second during the backcrawl and a fantasic tumble turn saw her lead as she began the breaststroke. 
Ellie pulled away during her favourite stoke and held on in the freestyle to win gold with a four second PB of 1:17.80. The P7 student easily qualified for the 50m breaststroke in a time of 38.23 and was top seed for the final where her friend and fellow competitor, Jodie, pushed her all the way with Ellie winning. This was the second year in a row that Ellie won gold in the 50m breaststroke and she was delighted to add the 100m IM title as well to become a double Irish  gold medallist.. 
12 year old Caragh Leonard had a fantastic day also achieving double Irish Schools titles. She claimed her first title in the 50m freestyle in a time of 29.13, making her the fastest swimmer racing at the competition in both girls and boys events. 
With just minutes to prepare for her next final Caragh swam another excellent race making the most of a flawless underwater pull on the turn, she pulled away from her closest rivals coming home in another personal best time of 37.21.
Elsewehere, St. Mary’s PS, Maguiresbridge pupil, Jake Cadden, produced some great performances on Sunday and was very proud to put his school on the Irish Schools swimming map for the very first time. 
Jake produced an outstanding performance in the 11 year old 50m backstroke to make the final where he was placed 8th overall. Jake also had a fantastic result in the 50m breaststroke when he placed 12th overall and produced a new PB.
Devenish College were represented at the Irish Schools for the first time by Tara McKenzie. The 1st year student swam in the same heat as Ellie and she posted a fantastic PB of 42.92 just missing out on a final placing by 0.9 of a second. New to competitive swimming, finishing 14th in Ireland will give Tara the confidence to improve.
Ben Lynch swam for the first  time at the championships representing St Michael’s College and recorded a PB in the 100m IM with time of 1:22.13 to finish eighth in Ireland. Ben also competed in the 50m backcrawl.