War of the Feathers – Part 3
Day 2 I It had been too long a night. For General Casey Aiza his restlessness was now searing into something more tangible, a solid force he could finally apply. Still, it was bittersweet in a way. Since he was…
Category TIFAM Archive
Bluebell Shoot 2025
It is now summer, which in Ireland means the weather likes to behave in more of a bipolar manner. Summer in Ireland is different from the other two seasons – I’m convinced we don’t really get Spring, just a mildish…
The Wounds That Never Heal
A meditation on hurt, ritual, and the intimate violence of archery “Then the English archers stept forth one pace and let fly their arrows so wholly [together] and so thick, that it seemed snow. When the Genoways felt the arrows…...
Between War and Wonder
“I do not fight because I seek glory. I fight because I must protect what is mine.”— Tigrevurmud Vorn, Lord Marksman and Vanadis There’s something curious about the quiet books that stick. They arrive without noise, sit down across from…...
The Reapers Are the Angels: What If?
“You walk and you walk and you carry what you can and you leave the rest behind.” It stays with you, that line, doesn’t it? Like the feel of a worn stone in your pocket, or the ache in your…...
The Guild and the Crown
In the hush between the tolling of bells and the hiss of the string, something else stirred in the guildhalls of medieval Flanders and England—something older than the arrows they notched and swifter than the oaths they swore. While the…...
The Case for Greater Archery
This is an updated version of an article I published a few years ago, about how badly the Olympics and World Archery need to diversify the representation of shooting styles. Given the inclusion of compound, I felt it was appropriate to not only republish it but update it too.
War of the Feathers – Part 2
IV “I always wanted to do a landscape of the Mayne Lighthouse,” Ebrill said, relief in her voice as they clattered down the steps of the lighthouse’s base into the refreshingly cool, salty air. Evander enjoyed the taste and smell…
Archers Of Ennis (Onwards and upwards)
Introduction – who we are… We are a dedicated community built on shared passion, friendly competition, and a genuine love for the art of archery – Archers of Ennis isn’t just a place to hone our skills. It’s become the…
The tyrany of Coaching
Well archers, readers, today we embark on a journey of what if… It’s a heretical endeavour, filled with blasphemy and a provocation calculated—yes, calculated—to infuriate you. This is not a careless insult nor a drunken rant penned between ends. No,…...
Rituals of the Unseen
There are mornings when the world feels like a screen that forgot to sleep—flickering, expectant, always asking. In such light, where every silence must be earned and every stillness risks interruption, the soul reaches for older shapes. Not solutions. Not…...
Where the Paper Cuts Deeper: A Return to Clonkeen Woods
Portlaoise carries its soul just beneath the hedgerows, where boots sink slightly and tree roots knot like old thoughts. And tucked within that pulse, in Clonkeen Woods – where the canopy breaks into mottled shadow and the light stammers across…
The Bow Remembers: On the Ethics of Recoil
The essay that follows—perhaps a touch long for an online piece—is, in truth, a chapter from The Arrow Knows No Master, a book I’ve been quietly shaping since February of last year. It’s composed of individual essays—mostly reflective, occasionally philosophical—on…
Charles the Bold and the Gamble of Archers
I came across him not in a book, but in a footnote misquoted in the margin of another. It was a binding so cracked it seemed to wheeze when opened, part of a bundle I’d been lent by a Flemish…...
No Comfort Zone For Next 24 Targets
As the fictious, famed Chaos Theorist and open shirt enthusiast, Dr Ian Malcom, once said, “Hang on, this is going to be bad.” 3D Archery is not like Field Archery, and very far removed from Target Archery. Each of the…
Justice, of a Sort
Aeker Murdock had been invited to a major archery event held in the Kingdom of Xellcarr. As the archery guild’s Master of Crows, he was often called upon to guest inspect private, or national, competitions. His title, a hangover from…
Page turner picks (Column)
Making Wooden Arrows – A Master’s Guide By John Potter 2020 Edition/90 pages I believe the making of wooden arrows, and their pairing to the archer and the bow as one of the truest skills in archery. And sadly, one…
Lesser things and trivia… (Column)
The story I’m about to tell you is not one that fits neatly into the grand histories of kings and battles, nor does it appear in the sweeping narratives of medieval glory or tragedy. It is a whisper at the…...
War of the Feathers – Part I
The beginning of a war, the arrows of one nation against the griffin worshiping ideology of another nation.
Following on from the prologue published last month, Evander Penrose must endure against the surrealist nature of this conflict and build a defence to repel vast odds.
How Archers go blind…
They go blind, not suddenly, not dramatically, but like stone crumbling beneath ivy. A slow erosion hidden under the costume of stillness. Archers — who speak so often of form and silence, of the sacred breath before release — rarely…...