Ellie McCartney finished fifth in the final of the women's 200m breaststroke at the European Short Course Championships in Lublin, Poland.
The Enniskillen woman set a national record to win her semi-final in 2:18.81 to take more than a second off her PB, but was unable to match that in the final.
Stalking the leaders over the first half of the race, she straddled third for a period around halfway before fading slightly coming down the stretch.
McCartney clocked a time of 2:19.90 in a race won by Germany's Anna Elendt (2:18.16), with Great Britain’s Angharad Evans taking silver and Lithuania’s Kotryna Teterevkova completing the podium.
"I'm very disappointed, I'm not going to lie," she said. "My semi-final time would have got me a medal there, I know I have more in me, so I'm really disappointed, I thought I was doing better than that."
John Shortt finished seventh in the final of the men’s 100m backstroke.
Two days after setting a new world junior record in the 200m backstroke, the Galway man entered the final with the slowest qualifying time.
In a stacked final, the 18-year-old (above) was in seventh for the majority of the race, briefly picking up a position before the final turn to clock a time of 50.10.
Olympic champion Thomas Ceccon took gold (49.29), with defending champion Mewen Tomac of France (49.46) second and Great Britain’s Ollie Morgan taking bronze.
Ellen Walshe laid down a marker in the women's 200m medley by winning her semi-final and advancing as the third fastest qualifier for Saturday’s final.
Walshe cruised through in winning her morning heat, and went two and a half seconds quicker in winning her semi-final in 2:06.63.
Great Britain pair Freya Colbert and Katie Shanahan posted faster times in the second semi-final and Walshe will start in lane three for the final, which starts at 6.14pm Irish time.
"I was just looking for kind of the top two, just to kind of put myself in a nice position for tomorrow night, there's a lot of kind of fast swimming to come in that event, so it will be a good fight tomorrow," she said.
Back-to-back 1500m freestyle champion Daniel Wiffen was back in the pool this morning, successfully negotiating the men's 800m freestyle.
Looking to defend his 800m crown, the Armagh native qualified for the final as the fourth fastest competitor, clocking a time of 7:34.60 in the third heat, finishing second behind Hungary's Zalan Sarkany, who won in 7:33.85.
Johannes Liebmann was the fastest qualifier, setting a new world junior mark in the second heat with a superb 7:30.94 performance. Wiffen is the World Record holder in the event in 7:20.46.
The final will take place on Saturday evening, with Wiffen reporting no after effects from Thursday's heroics.
"Feeling pretty good, I tried to make it as comfortable as possible, it felt really good surprisingly, I thought I'd be holding a bit of fatigue, I’m happy, the time is decent and I’m ready for tomorrow night," he said.
"I’m four-time European champion, and I’ve got a bronze medal now, honestly, I’m just parking it and moving on. I remember the first one, I took all the glory but I’m now here to do a job, and that’s to win the event I came here for.
"I don’t know who made the schedules, but they didn’t favour the distance (swimmers), but I’m ready for tomorrow. I’m excited, I’m the world record holder so it’s good to defend my title. I got to see my name beside the world record on the screen for the first time."
In the women's 100m heats, Rosalie Phelan finished third in her heat in 54.16 but failed to progress, clocking the 32nd fastest time overall.
There was no joy for the Irish quartet In the men's 100m freestyle heats, with Evan Bailey, Cormac Rynn, Matthew Hamilton and Adam Bradley all failing to advance to the semi-finals.
Bailey won his heat in 47.53 but was 32nd overall, with the top 16 qualifying.
Watch the action from Lublin live on Eurovision Sport.
