PROFILE - Noel Conroy - Nenagh Guardian Sports Award winner 2020

Noel Conroy became the fourth Tipperary man to win the Irish Close/Gold Cup last August.

Noel followed in the footsteps of Newtown’s J.F Barry in 1948, Richard Lewis of Birdhill in 1987 & 1992 and most recently fellow Cloughjordan shooter David Goulding in 2012 & 2015 in winning the oldest and most prestigious competition on the Irish shooting calendar

Clay target shooters from the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland compete for the Gold Cup each year and have done since 1927, and in 2020 at the ICTSA National Shooting Grounds in Esker, 184 competitors took part.

At the end of the three wave events, Noel Conroy was tied with Christopher Maher on maximum scores and so they entered a final shoot-off where Maher shot 24/70 and but Noel Conroy shot a maximum 25/75, to win the Gold Cup, one of the longest running shooting events in the country.

“If you were to ask anybody in the shooting fraternity across the island, they would all say the Gold Cup is the pinnacle of it,” Noel said.

Noel has been a member of a member of Cloughjordan/Kilruane/Ardcroney Gun Club for many years and has been an Ireland team member represented Ireland DTL ‘Down the Line’ shooting team since 2017.

“I was always into game shooting,” he added. “I only took up clay target shooting six years ago. It was something I always wanted to do but I never got around to it because there were other things to do in life.

“I got a natural flair for it then when I was shooting at the shooting grounds. I enjoyed it so much that I decided to put a bit of focus on it, so the next step was to acquire a gun that shoots that kind of target because it is a rising target with a particular set-up. I really found it a challenge against the ground and layout as opposed to the people around you, a little like golf.”