Results – Irish Open – 2024
Yet another Irish Open weekend done and dusted.
For the first time, in a long time, The Open was back in the fine ranges in Fermoy Rifle Club. Those of us of a certain vintage will remember shooting in the Open in Fermoy many moons ago – and they were back with a bang.
The ranges were in fantastic shape – many of you were down there in March for their National will have seen the huge amount of work has gone in, even since then.
They seem to have found the secret sauce for growing Range Officers too – there was never a shortage of people to run matches, clear guns, change targets, run scoresheets … whatever needed doing.
Loads of people put in great work – but, for me – John McLean – who celebrated his 84th Birthday, by volunteering at this years Irish Open and working hard all weekend shows us all how it is done.
It was impressive to see – and great craic to be at.
Of course we had people from all over Ireland there to compete – aswell as people coming in on boats, planes, trains and automobiles from abroad to put em to the test. And to the test they did put them – we saw some great shooting.
There are an awful lot of events, with multiple classes in each, and all saw some great performances. A few highlights,
We have started to see some, slow, growth in Classic GRCF in the last few years. Team GBs Keith Kilvington came over to the Irish Open, for the first time, and gave a master class in how to shoot the Iron Sights Gallery Rifle – taking every Gold, bar one. Courtloughs (and now Team Irelands) Mark McCandless put in a huge score with the Uberti – just preventing Keith from getting the clean sweep. Hopefully we will see it grow even more and give Keith a run for his money on the next outing.
No slouch with the Scoped Gallery Rifle either, Keith managed to pull no less than 4 medals, including another Gold there. However MNSCIs Mike Nestor, sporting a new Go-Faster haircut, and who has not been seen on the competition circuit much recently came back with style and took 3 golds and 3 silvers in the GRCF (aswell as quite a few other medals in other events).
Smallbore Gallery Rifle saw some very tight battles for the medals. Fermoys own Keiran Barry, who has been working very hard in the months leading up to, and every hour of the Irish Open showing them all how it is done in the 50m Precision event with a huge 297 out of 300. Fermoys Julie Moran put in a massive score in the 25m Precision jumping from B to X Class.
Prone saw some truly great scores too, Fermoys Declan Fitzgerald cleaned the Open Field Sporting 50m Prone with a score of 400 out of 400. I went over those targets with a fine tooth comb to try and find a 9 and could not. Some serious shooting from Declan, who did quite well in one or two other events as well.
And, like Kieran, and all the team from Fermoy, who put in some serious work behind the scenes getting ready for and throughout the Open, still managed to line out and shoot a possible. We’re not jealous at all – honest.
We saw a good few of our younger competitors do very well across the event also, Fermoys Matthew Valentine came away with a Gold and a Bronze and was narrowly pipped for another. Lough Bos Brandon McGowan took away a Gold, two Silver and two Bronze (we put him to work in Stats a fair bit too – but the biscuits didn’t seem to last long when he was in there)
Something that was also very good to see was the number of women taking part in the Irish Open this year.
There are not enough women in our sport – and that is half the population – so it is always good to not only see more take part – but to see them in the medals – and they took plenty. Both Team GB and Team Germany had female members. Our own Julie Moran, who swept up in the Open, was only 2 points (out of 6000) outside selection for the Irish Teams on this occasion – I’d watch this space.
And speaking of the National Teams … drum roll please.
Ireland were victorious on home turf in the Smallbore International Team Event – with some very good scores from everyone.
Great Britain took Silver and Germany took Bronze with some great shooting from their teams, but Ireland were simply too strong for them on this occasion.
In the Centrefire International Team Event, Germany took the honours – by a tiny margin on only 4 points out of 6000
Ireland were quietly confident as the scoresheets were sent to stats to be tallied – but it became obvious that Germanys Jessica Eggers had put in a huge score, which helped push her countries team over the line into first place.
So Ireland took Silver and Great Britain took Bronze (also only a tiny 12 points – 2 shots – behind).
Great performances from everyone – they were all a credit to their respective countries, organisations and the sport of Target Shooting. We are already looking forward to the rematches in Germany in November during the World Championships. Anyone thinking of going to the World Cup in Germany, and is not sure what to do, drop us a a line and we will give you all the information.
So to everyone that took part, in the months leading up to the event, in the background during the event, keeping the ranges safe and orderly at the event, doing whatever wizardry it is they do in stats, and togging out to shoot either as an individual or on a team ….. Go Raibh Maith Agat and we hope to see you all back in Fermoy for the 2025 Open.
See the final match results here including International and Aggregate results.
We have a Governing Body meeting this Thursday, July 11th (everyone, as always, welcome to attend and contribute – talk to your club rep for the call details)
Next up will be the An Riocht National in Co Kerry in less than 3 short weeks – July 27th/28th – we hope to see you all there. Match notice and registration coming soon.
Finally, a reminder to follow our Facebook page for future match notices, and to see the hundreds of photos taken throughout the event head over to the Irish Open 2024 photo albums.