What must the archer guard after the first three shafts land clean: the score already pencilled onto the card, or the form that bore those arrows through air? Rain-soft paper curls beside the bow case, pencil marks gleaming like fish…
What does a scorecard do to friendship when one archer’s arrow cuts closer to the centre than mine? The card looks slight enough, a crease in rain-soft paper, thumb grease along one edge, pencil dust in the boxes where names…
Mastering the “Parasite”: The Art of Action Meditation You’re on the shooting line. Your heart is hammering against your chest, and your bow arm is vibrating so hard the arrow is nearly jumping off the rest. You aren’t in any…
Welcome to a new season of archery challenges! At Lough Cuan Bowmen, archers are engaging in a series of unconventional shooting challenges for prizes of myth. Each week – more or less – archers can endeavour to win an arrow…
The Mane, The Unclaimed Waters between Fohalin and Nauberta – Typhon Resurgence, Day 17 Of all the myths within the great ocean between The Mane and The Sigel, tales of the Daemon Flamingo refused to age or even convolute themselves…
A limestone abdomen tightens beneath a carved rib cage; the navel sinks into a hard cup, the chest turns off its axis, the left knee bites the pedimental floor. What form of self comes forward when a hero folds around…
What kind of theology tightens itself across the small arc between a child’s throat and a god’s relaxed wrist? Along the outer wall of the Louvre krater named from the Niobids, a white rise of ground cuts through black glaze…
What does an arrow know of the polis that a spear leaves in shadow? I begin with a broken Attic plate from Vulci^1, a shard whose red surface carries a youth turning through the vessel’s curve, one palm resting at…
Well, dear archers, I thought I might prepare this little travel guide for you and your May visit to our great town of Portlaoise. Portlaoise carries its past with quiet assurance. The town began in the mid-sixteenth century as a…
Roger Ascham arrived on my kitchen table bound within a worn volume, carrying the smell of chalky dust alongside old paste. A block of beeswax sat beside my longbow, waiting near a coiled linen string. Holding those threads evoked an…
For those Unfamiliar with 3D Archery, or those who just like a bit of Lego:
How did the shamrock come about as an Irish symbol? The fact that Ballyvally Archers’ Shamrock Shoot comes in March is rather apt, as it was Saint Patrick who taught of the Holy Trinity using a shamrock. And whilst this…
For some, arrows are simply a tool, perhaps even overlooked. Something for throwing at the target and nothing more. Why would anyone labour over an arrow’s aesthetics? Well, when I began as a traditional archer, a seasoned trad shooter and…
What does Teresa’s transverberation reveal about embodied theology? I read chapter 29 of the Vida as an account of knowledge entering the creature through injury, motion, heat, cry, and aftermath. The famous angel with the flaming shaft does not ornament…
The Forest God and the Forbidden Zone A red elk breaks through cedar shadow with a prince upon its back, each hoof striking root and loam with the grave insistence of blood borne under oath, while, in another cinematic country…
On the Rock of Dunamase the limestone rises with a clenched grammar, as though the earth had learned law from iron, and as though the plain of Laois, which looks gentle when the sun lies low, had carried a memory…
A question lodged in my mouth with the abrasive persistence of a burr caught inside a sock, and from that small irritation the whole inquiry drew its shape: when a yew bow sings, which vessel receives the hymn—the timber itself,…
Calibration of the Shot: The Sensory Assault Indoor archery is a sensory assault. At my first events, the environment was a wall of high-gain distortion—the sharp bite of the buzzer followed by the thunderous “thwack” of a collective volley. My…
In the high-stakes run-up to Nationals and European championships, the search for the “perfect flight” often leads us to make gear adjustments that our bodies aren’t prepared for. I recently picked up a new set of arrows for the competitions,…
—What flies by consent, strikes by measure, gathers strangers into quiet, then leaves a single hole in the character of its testimony? A clear answer emerged through the organising work behind EIAC 2026 in Waterford. Leadership remained visible, with named…