Saying goodbye to the Irish Shooters Digest

Saying goodbye to the Irish Shooters Digest

The Irish Shooters Digest ceased publication in December 2017.  There is much I could say.  Perhaps the easiest summation is that without readers a gun writer is wasting ink and I have been blessed with readers.  Seventeen years ago ISD editor Eric Parkes approached me at a shooting event and asked me if I would like to write a monthly piece for the Irish Shooters’ Digest and the idea immediately appealed.  I was no stranger to scribbling having written for various publications but never on the subject that interested me most.  I began with a short article on what I loved best – rabbit hunting with a .22 rifle.  Sometimes thereafter I chose my topics and sometimes I was asked to write on a particular theme but mostly I just wandered the country following my own inclinations, talking to shooters and hunters and pursuing my own interests.  I can claim to have introduced topics heretofore unmentioned and unmentionable and which have since been much imitated.  I visited each of the 32 counties at one time or another.  I hunted rabbit, deer, feral goats, feral sheep, foxes and feral pig (but never got one).  I developed my interest in photography and took 28,000 digital photographs that are in themselves a record of the changes in Irish shooting and hunting.  I competed in F-Class, Benchrest, Classic Pistol, Black Powder, Practical Pistol, Target pistol, Field Target Air Rifle, Cowboy Action and numerous other disciplines.  It was all fun and when I went home and wrote about it, that was fun too.  I forged friendships that have endured and made a few enemies I will just forget about.  I have been harassed by animal rightists and investigated by Guards and invited to places I would never have been as an ordinary hunter.  The high point was Camp Perry, Ohio with the Irish International team and the low point was arriving at an Irish venue with the same team where the guards were waiting to question us based on malicious and false “information received”.  In between there were trips to Cork to shoot rabbits; Wicklow to shoot Silhouettes; Sligo to shoot pistol; Ballykinler Military ranges to shoot F-Class, the Czech republic as the guest of CZ and Scotland to hunt the wilderness of Caithness.  I loved it all.  The habit of writing became so strong that I often caught myself in the act of describing a magnificent view before I scanned it for quarry.  Now, looking back at a time when Irish shooting is tearing itself apart I realise I may have documented the best of it before it became the target of commercialisation, legislation and bureaucratisation.  I’ll keep writing about it but sadly, not in this publication.  I have a volume of short stories to finish; the discipline required to achieve this will be a struggle because I’ve become used to throwing a gun and a camera in the car and running off to somewhere interesting.  I’ve made many friends through the Digest and I hope to enjoy their company for many years.  As for hunting; I am genuinely concerned for the future of several quarry species.  Organised commercial poaching and disease have caused the numbers of several populations to crash and I see myself doing more range shooting and less hunting in future.  It is becoming obvious to observers of the countryside and wildlife that intensive farming is detrimental to both.  On the other hand the climate and the hunting environment are changing and we may see new species occupying vacant niches.  There is also a more fundamental issue; our attitude to wildlife.  Is it our heritage and something to conserved and cared for or is it a free resource to be exploited ruthlessly or even exterminated as a threat to agribusiness?

The Vintage and Classic rifle association of Ireland was one of the best things to happen in the Irish shooting scene but it was killed off - a victim of its own success

There have been so many memorable events in the last seventeen years it is impossible to select just one but a few stand out.  The unveiling by Fabian Connolly of the first Irish-built rifle in 100 years.  Mike Ryan and Fabian Connolly shooting for Ireland at Camp Perry, Ohio and the Irish team getting a spontaneous round of applause.  The culmination of legal efforts for the return after 38 years in the “Park” of my first gun, a Webley and Scott .177 air pistol which was a gift from my father.  The day the entire membership of the Vintage and Classic Rifle Association of Ireland came to visit Dunnyboe/Glensass Ranges in Northern Ireland.  My first day in the field in Galway with a black powder rifle.  Standing on a rock in a bay in Newfoundland photographing a magnificent fish eagle taking a flounder.  All of these events were reported in the Irish Shooters Digest and perhaps in some small way may have encouraged young shooters or perhaps given older people a sense of pride in our shooting heritage.  Who knows?  A critic once claimed I was just “educating guards and poachers” and that shooting should be “kept quiet”.  God forbid; but was he right?   For better or worse the Irish shooter will now be without a national publication and a voice unless someone takes up the challenge.  It may be that the Internet has overtaken shooting magazines or perhaps there is room for both.  One thing can be said with certainty.  There WAS change for the better between 1987 and 2017 and the Irish Shooters Digest reported and even promoted it.  No detractor can take that away from us.  My personal memory of the long struggle with political, civil and police authority was a six-footer who came up behind me in Paul o’Halloran’s gunshop and growled menacingly; “Ye don’t spare de ink do ye?”  I decided to take it as a compliment even though that wasn’t his intention.  Ministers of Justice (?) of various political hues have come and gone and all had a common interest – the criminalisation of shooters, hunting and shooting.  Shooting has few friends and shooters would do well to heed the advice of Psalm 146:3-5; “Put not your trust in princes………….in whom there is no help”.

Mike Ryan representing his country at Camp Perry.  He did this at his own expense and his reward at home was an interview with the guards as a result of malicious and false "information received"

I have to thank those people who helped, advised, taught and supported me.  Eric Parkes, Editor of the Irish Shooters Digest, who befriended and mentored me and taught me journalistic survival skills.  David Brennan of Ardee Sports who gave me access to his stock, staff and records and showed me how gun politics worked.  Fabian Connolly who helped me understand the science of ballistic engineering and gunsmithing.  Mike Ryan who shared his knowledge of gun politics, life and competitive shooting.  Derek Beattie who helped me navigate the Northern Ireland Shooting scene.  Peter May who taught me much about practical physics and optics.  Peter o’Connor who showed me how to overcome adversity.  Davy Hamill who introduced me to practical engineering.  My Wife, Audrey who helped me understand law.  Liam Good who shared a monumental general knowledge and curiosity about life and shooting.  My cousin James o’Hagan who introduced me to antique firearms.  John McKeefrey and Rodney Wells who taught me the basics of black powder and bulletsmithing.  Brian Hamilton who introduced me to Cowboy action and much besides.  The Garda Siochána from whom I learned the twin skills of arse-covering and looking over my shoulder and the Department of Justice from whom I learned about injustice and the value of healthy cynicism when dealing with government.  Phonsie Ward who showed me the value of humour in the face of madness.  The hundreds of chance acquaintances who shared their knowledge, wisdom, wit and life experience.  The many readers who contacted me over the years with their questions, photographs, stories, complaints and invitations to visit.  The departed characters, storytellers, rabbit poachers, rustic philosophers, gun nuts, agitators and lonely voices in the wilderness who have gone to a better place; may God welcome them and forgive their very minor misdeeds.  To all these people collectively who enriched the last seventeen years of my life and steered me in a direction I would not have had the courage to take on my own I can honestly say: I am happy to be where I am right now and I am grateful to all of you.  To the various small-minded detractors, begrudgers, liars, calumniators, cute hoors, fanatical animal rightists, fraudulent litigators and assorted philistines I say: “Nice try but you achieved nothing!”

Life has its compensations like this glorious day with Phonsie Ward of Dunnyboe Club on Glensass Ranges, County Tyrone

Looking back I see two lows with a high between.  The low point of the last forty years was in the seventies when a 22 and a 12 bore was the best most of us could aspire to and rabbit shooters were lumped with terrorists.  I remember a Tullamore Guard telling me with impeccable logic back in the eighties; “you MUST be in the IRA – you’re mad about guns”.  The peak was a period in the early 2,000’s when the world was our oyster and we had rifles, pistols, great hunting, international competition success and optimism.  The second low is right now when we are losing it all to hostile legislation, infighting, greed, commercial poaching, political correctness, litigation, corrosive cynicism, stupidity, egotism and apathy.  Sixteen years ago I was accused of being “Anti-Guard” for pointing out their abuses of the law; today I am vindicated and I am grateful to those Digest readers who have acknowledged that fact.  Yes I gave the authorities lots of stick.  I make no apologies - they deserved it and still do.  Nothing has changed; they still don’t want us to have guns.  Looking forward I fear the shooting sports of twenty years from now will be more regulated, expensive and a lot less fun.  Traditional publishing worldwide is losing ground to the Internet and time will tell whether the online written word and its associated lower costs will create opportunities for small publishing businesses.  I hope the Irish shooter will continue to have a voice but as George Bernard Shaw famously said; “Put an Irishman on the spit and you will always find another Irishman to turn him” and sadly the behaviour of some in the Irish shooting community towards those who would give it a voice has been just that.  I am thoroughly disillusioned with the direction Irish shooting has taken.  Commercial poaching, section 42's out of control, wildlife disappearing fast, political infighting, power struggles, lawsuits, clever boys looking for new ways to screw money out of the shooter and shooting and everyone an expert and no-one keeping an eye on the ball and all this instead of taking on the guards and the government who are determined to introduce a gun ban.  Unless we cop ourselves on we could very easily end up regulated out of existence with nothing to shoot, no pistols or high-powered rifles and astronomical fees for membership of clubs and access to ranges and the best of our hunting sold to tourists.  We are sleepwalking towards a cliff-edge.  Will online publications/websites/forums change this insanity?  I hope so but am not sure they will.  Our sport is worth fighting for.

Foxes at dusk along the River Boyne with my oldest friend, Patsy Murphy. - The fox police never sleep!

There is much in life that is irrelevant and unimportant.  One thing that IS important is getting up in the morning and doing whatever one does and for a shooter that’s, well, shooting.  For one man it might be winning a competition or killing a fine stag; for another it might be listening to the morning larks, his hunting forgotten.  Or as a wise farmer once said to me; “The best day of your life is the day you can get up and do a bit”.  I will miss the Irish Shooters’ Digest.  It opened doors and got me out of bed on wet Saturday mornings.  It was an introduction to all kinds of interesting people and I got to review interesting products.  Life without it will be different.  So goodbye everybody and thanks again.  Have a great Christmas, keep shooting, keep safe and may God bless you all. 

It's a few years ago now but reporting the development and unveiling of Fabian Connolly's first creation - The Connolly Rifle - was exciting.  The rifle was the first to be built in Ireland in over a century

Liam Archibald of Creggagh Rifle Club in Tyrone examines his handiwork

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