Noel is on Target for the reopening of Shooting clubs
By Shane Brophy
One of the sports that will be allowed to resume on Monday 26th April, following the easing of coronavirus restrictions is Clay Target Shooting.
It might not get the limelight the likes of golf and tennis will get in terms of an outdoor sport getting back to some level of normality, but shooting is a strong community sport in its own right with gun clubs and shooting grounds right around the country.
One of those looking forward to loading his gun once again is Noel Conroy, last year’s Irish Close/Gold Cup champion and a winner of a 2020 Nenagh Guardian Sports Award.
A relatively recent convert to competitive shooting, which has seen him represent Ireland on the international stage, the Ballinamurragh man’s passion for shooting developed at an early age.
“My father John, my brothers and my uncles Joe, PJ and Noel Moyles would have been very much into their game shooting,” he began.
“I was game-shooting with them and my neighbours during the various shooting seasons in the locality. In this area game-shooting is very prevalent and is a big part of the local culture, nearly as much as hurling.”
Near his home on the old Birr Road between Nenagh and Cloughjordan, road signs for the local Cloughjordan/Kilruane/Ardcroney Gun Club are very clear and while Noel’s recent success has been in the sporting end of shooting, the wildlife element remains hugely important in an environmental sense.
“There is a big focus here on the balance of wildlife as well and I have to stress that,” he said pointing to a pheasant release pen at his home.
“The Gun Club are very involved in managing game and controlling the game/vermin balance as much as possible, that’s why we maintain a wide variety of animals and birds in the local environment.”
“It’s a real community approach between the local farming families and the gun club members, keeping the signage in place protects the animals and the farmers as all gun club members are NARGC insured, also because land is preserved for gun club members only, then the gun club members will respect it and they’ll know when birds are released or when and where an area shouldn’t be shot.”
RURAL PASTIME
Shooting is a popular pastime among people of all ages. It tends to be a tradition handed down through families in particular. Noel only got into competitive clay shooting in 2014 and developed a keen passion for it.
Competitive shooting is a sport with numerous categories, including Down the Line, Alternating Ball trap, Olympic trap, English Sporting, Fitacs, National Skeet and Olympic Skeet, however, Noel settled on Down the Line and hasn’t looked back since.
“It was something I always wanted to do but I never got around to it because there were other things to do in life,” he said of taking up competitive shooting seven years ago.
“There was the Harry Burn Cup which is shot for in the Gun Club that I set my sights on and that was being held at Esker Shooting grounds in Banagher, Co. Offaly (recently designated as the new National Shooting grounds).”
“It was a mixed event of several shooting disciplines and won most often by Bunny Kehoe, however one discipline I found I liked was Down the Line (DTL). Interestingly I would have seen DTL clay target shooting for the first time as a kid on Harry Burns front avenue field in Fortwilliam.
“It’s amazing how certain things stay with you, I got a natural flair for it then when I was shooting on the layout, I enjoyed it so much that I decided to put a bit of focus on it, so the next step was to acquire a trap gun that shoots that kind of target, because it is a rising target with a particular set-up.”
The international norm for DTL is that a registered event is shot over a one hundred target competition with five different stands within four different layouts. All these all present the shooter with the challenge of shooting five targets traveling at up to forty miles per hour with an alternating direction of up to 45 degrees. From each stand your objective is to shoot them all of course with the first barrel, which scores you three points or the second barrel which scores you two points.
“The majority of clay target shooters in the ICTSA (Irish Clay Target Shooting Association) would compete in the Down the Line discipline,” Noel revealed.
“That’s the most common and most accessible layout type in most shooting grounds across the country. This is the reason I choose to stick with DTL also, because for some of the other discipline’s I don’t have access to the layouts needed to shoot them.”
“I really found it a challenge against the ground and layout as opposed to the people around you, a little like golf.
“I just love the sport.”
ELITE LEVEL
Clay Target shooting has been a popular pastime in the country for over a century with the ICTSA established way back in 1920’s to promote and develop various shooting disciplines.
There have been many notable shooters in North Tipperary down through the years, through JF Barry from Newtown to Birdhill’s Richard Lewis and Cloughjordan’s David Goulding, all three of whom won the prestigious Irish Close/Gold Cup, which Noel added his name to that illustrious roll of honour in August 2020, during the brief respite in the Covid-19 restrictions.
“The Gold Cup is one of the longest running events in Ireland and Britain, since 1927,” Noel said.
“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.”
“In 2020 we shot during a period of July/August/September and the ICTSA were really strict on it and got most of the events shot off including the Gold Cup and the Irish Open.
“The Home Nations International and World Cup events were suspended unfortunately due to the pandemic.
“Shooting is an outdoor sport, and we can keep Covid compliant, all the shooting grounds are really good at that, they are very complaint in everything they have done.”
This year the Home Nations International and British Open is scheduled to take place in Crossmore shooting grounds in Co. Clare. This will be a two-day event in September so hopefully that will go ahead. Prior to that in the ICTSA will aim to hold all of the national shooting events in all disciplines and of course the DTL inter-provincial competition.
“The inter-pro is a great opportunity for shooters who want to come through to shoot for their province and possibly their country,” Noel added.
“It’s gives them an opportunity to experience high pressure shooting when shooting for your province. There are others locally such as the great Noel Walsh and Don Treacy from Cloughjordan and John Gleeson of Carrigatoher, who have also represented the Munster DTL team.”
Noel Conroy has been fortunate enough to not only shoot to a high level in his own right, but also progress to represent the Ireland senior team in international competitions.
“It’s like anything, the harder I work the luckier I get, and I can’t say that enough,” he said.
“I have worked really hard at this over the last number of years. I shot my first one hundred targets with just two second barrels in 2016, that was in Wales and once I knew I could do that, then I was able to push on from there. Since then I have shot dozens of hundreds thankfully and I have made the international team each year since 2017.”
The ICTSA also select teams to represent Ireland in the other shooting disciplines such as Olympic Trap, but Noel doesn’t see himself following in the footsteps of Aoife Gormally and Ian O’Sullivan who are both Irish Sport Council funded shooters but who narrowly missed out on qualifying for the upcoming Olympic Games.
“I would have to move from Down the Line to Olympic Trap or Skeet as Down the Line shooting hasn’t been recognised as an Olympic sport,” Noel explained.
“Elite level shooting is expensive as it requires competing in competitions around Europe and the world to gain the points to qualify and that would require a significant greater level of funding and time.
“In Down the Line we do have non-Olympic International events such as the European and World Championships. The World Championships were due to be held last June in England at a time when I arguably had never been shooting as well in my life. I shot two maximum scores of 100-300 in the space of a month leading up to this current lockdown and it was postponed again.
“Hopefully, the Home Nations International can go ahead in September, Ireland have a strong reputation and good record at home, we really enjoy competing against the best in the world, it’s a real challenge.”