DURC in East Antrim
14/10/00
Mark Dennehy

This year, DURC was hoping to attend East Antrim Rifle Club's Festival
with a large group of our regular shooters. Unfortunately, problems with
the reissuing of licences here meant that the paperwork to take several
people could not be organised. However, the possible re-introduction
of olympic pistol shooting in Ireland (contingent on the Department of
Justice's review) prompted some of us (Ray Reilly, Alan Smyth, John
Keeney and myself) to go to the Festival on a "fact-finding tour"
anyway.

Following a few hours driving, punctuated by the mother of all
vegetarian triple-decker sandwiches, we arrived at EARC, where two of the
EARC members had stayed up late (it was by now 2330) to make sure we
could get into the range where three of us were to be spending the
night (Oh the perks of a student's life ...). Following the tour of the
range, which impressed the socks off those of us who had not seen EARC 
before, we bought the makings of a proper breakfast for the next
morning. This provided a great deal of entertainment - Alan's attempts
to purchase 'pudding ban' left most of us rolling on the floor for
several minutes, though I still think my trying to find chives wasn't
as funny as the reactions I got would imply! 

After this light entertainment, we retired to the range for the night,
and Ray returned to his B&B. After a quick game of pool, during which
John won an award for the longest shot of the night when his cueball
went off the table, out the door, down the stairs and around two corners
before stopping, all without touching any other balls, we put our heads
down for the night, with strict instructions that we had to be up for
seven the next morning in order to get the room tidy and breakfast made
and eaten by 0830, when we were expecting the 0900 detail's shooters to
arrive. Needless to say, the first of us to wake the next morning did so 
an hour late and, having woken John and Alan as efficiently as was
possible, I started breakfast, only to discover that EARC's entire
kitchen is set up to cook for a minimum of twenty people! It was quite
an experience to be able to cook a full Irish breakfast for three people
and do it all at once in one frying pan!

With breakfast over and the room reasonably tidy, we started with an
0900 detail for Ray shooting prone rifle, Alan shooting Air Rifle using
Ray's P70, and myself shooting .22 pistol using a club pistol
generously lent to us for the competition by EARC. John meanwhile
busied himself taking various pictures and video clips of us using a
digital camcorder we had brought. During the day John, Alan and myself
each shot with both .22 and air pistol, as well as air rifle, using
EARC club pistols and Ray's P70. We also spent some time talking to the
various Range Officers in EARC who train members to shoot with pistols,
mainly about safety precautions and training procedures.

Due to the lack of time, we were not able to compete in the sporter
rifle competition, or to talk to as many of the regulars as we would
have liked to, but the day was definitely worth the trip, and was
enjoyed fully by all. We're already planning a repeat trip next
year, with a larger contingent. We'd like to thank the members of EARC,
who were nothing but generous and helpful throughout the trip, making
it both useful and enjoyable at the same time.