Miss Earth hopeful Dearbhla has Galway roots!

She’s the Donegal girl representing Northern Ireland and aiming to conquer the Earth – but Dearbhla Walsh’s Galway roots are firmly planted too, in a townland just outside of Oughterard.

The 22 year old Honours Quantity Surveying Degree student is the daughter of Billy and Siobhan Walsh, who hail from Billiamore outside the village. And while her parents have long since lived in Donegal, Dearbhla’s grandmother, Madeline, still lives in Galway.

She herself takes great pride in her Galway roots but also has a real agenda as she gets ready for the 2015 International  Miss Earth Pageant in Austria in November.

The 22 year old believes she can affect change within her world of construction, promoting buildings that are environmentally responsible and resource efficient.

“I’m one of three girls in a quantity surveying class of 15 – I’d like to get more girls interested. Boys do get listened to a bit more and I’m out to change that, too,” she said this week/

The Donegal native is grateful for the pageant as it allows her to express her more feminine side: “I’m a woman in a man’s world and I like the fact that I can go out and show my femininity. I won’t try to hide it.”

Dearbhla Walsh from Donegal is representing Northern Ireland in one of the largest beauty pageants this November.

Her message on her way to Austria is a simple but enormous one – ‘Building Northern Ireland for a sustainable future’ – and she strongly supports pioneering American architect Mike Reynolds’ notion of “earth ships”.

This concept promotes sustainable builds that make use of local indigenous materials, often from waste car tyres and other recyclable materials. The material and resulting bearing walls that it forms are virtually indestructible.

The buildings make the most of the weather, collecting water when it rains, generating free power from the wind and capturing free heat and electricity from the sun.

The undergraduate will travel to Austria for the pageant on November 10 for four weeks. The pageant will be aired on ABS-CBN and other local TV stations across the globe. The final will be held on December 5.