Staurday & Sunday the 4th & 5th of May, Wicklow Archers Archery Club hosted the Irish Open Field Championships 2013. The event took place in Dargle Valley, Enniskerry Co. Wicklow. Wicklow Archers is one of the few clubs that regularly hold field archery competitions.
The weather was excellent with sunny conditions both days. The course was particularly challenging with many archers commented on the difficulty but most of the time they were smiling as they said it! The course consisted of 24 targets, 12 of which were at marked distances and 12 of which were unmarked. The challenge is that archers are required to shoot at varying, often steep, angles not common in other forms of target archery. Depending on ability archers shot from different colour pegs, Red, Blue & Yellow.
A total of 77 archers attended both days. The three main disciplines represented over the weekend were, Recurve (27), Compound (24) and Barebow (26). Archers from all over the co
untry including a large contingent of archers from Northern Ireland made it down for the weekend.
The highest scorer of the weekend was in Senior Ladies Compound where Mel Lawther (Wicklow Archers) scored 736 out of a possible 864 points which was an excellent score considering how difficult the course was.
Mark Nesbit put in an excellent score winning Senior Gents Recurve with a score of 715.
The scores were tight for Top Senior Gents Barebow where Gilbert Mc Clelland won by just 2 points!
A big thank you must be given to everyone who took the time to design and construct the course and those who ensured the competition ran smoothly. Day one ended with a fantastic Barbeque. The grill was supplied by Shay McCoy, Our chef for the evening was Grainne Doyle, and the meat was supplied by Irelands finest pork butcher, Mr Ed Hick of Hicks butchers of Dun Laoghaire. Photos Supplied thanks to Aidan Langley.
We look forward to seeing everyone at our next field league competition which will be on Sunday the 2nd of June.
Article supplied thanks to Brian Cullen, Public Relations Officer Wicklow Archers
Scores can be accessed through the following link:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1715876/Results%20IOF%202013.pdf
