Colum Cille 3D 2025

I was excited to be back at Ballywalter for a couple of reasons, one of which was because of the new species of pheasant introduced to the estate.

This species is known as Reeve’s Pheasant and comes from China. And I am sure you are looking for the photos of them, but sadly they appear to be a more elusive species of pheasant – that or they quickly ended up in a stew before I got to the venue.

The significance of this competition was not lost on any of the hosting club’s members, or the visitors. Ballywalter had been all but obliterated in the storms at the beginning of the year. So severe was the destruction that Lough Cuan’s setup team was unable attain access to the venue, and our Red Kite 3D – named so because of a Red Kite sighting at Ballywalter – was moved to Clandeboye.

To put the destruction into context, Ballywalter estate is only a stone’s throw down the road from the National Trust venue Mount Stewart. During the storms Mount Stewart lost ten thousand trees!

No one in the setup team was exaggerating when they spoke of the inaccessibility to sections of the archery course. When I was present helping to set up signage for the course, piles of cut-up trees and branches were stacked up in numerous areas. One section of the course was still inaccessible, untouched by the efforts of the setup team and estate staff due to the sheer complexity of the damage. Due to this inaccessibility four to five target lanes had been lost and needed to be found elsewhere on the course.

Throughout the course great tangles of tree roots were writhing forlornly in the air, clinging to what dirt and soil had been pulled up with them; trees with shallow roots toppled by gale force winds once the unrelenting rain had reduced to the hard soil to something more bog-like.

Here in the north, an infamous shoot was 2018’s Shamrock Field Round on the 10^th of March, hosted by Ballyvally Archers. Held at Tollymore forest park, the first day of the shoot saw torrential rain which did not relent. I’ll say nothing about the circumstances being exacerbated by a group of compound archers who held everyone up.

Veteran archer Alan Craig once remarked regarding the competition that he’d ‘never retired from a competition before’ and that this one was the ‘closest’ he’d come to doing so.

Well, our first day of the Colum Cille was looking as if it was attempting to compete with this old legend. A monsoon met us as he reached the far side of the peninsula and stayed without throughout the whole morning. So dire was the downpour that the club Chair, Bill Latimer, decided to simply begin the competition the moment everyone had arrived.

Regardless of wet-weather attire, we were all soaked through by the time we made it to our starting target.

As this was a fun-shoot, scorecards where abandoned by many, though I managed to keep mine intact and legible throughout the day. That said, halfway through the first half I was contemplating ditching it given the quality of my shooting.

Archers who missed targets did not send much time looking for their arrows, and by the end of the first day, the lost-arrow sheet was full. Come the second day with better, warmer weather, the majority of these were found as archers revisited targets.

Oddly, things picked up for me by the second half, and I went on to shoot a respectable score. Whilst I can’t give a description or name to it, some archers are not effected by poor weather conditions. I’ll grant you the cold does not do my scores any good, but the wet has no negative effects. This was the same for Steven Cross of Lough Cuan Bowmen who shot a personal best.

For Lough Cuan junior Elli Quinn this was her baptism of fire, and the wettest baptism of fire she will likely experience. Not only did she hold her nerve and endure but came back the next day. As this was her first field round, Eli received a Lough Cuan Bowmen completion certificate.

Whilst Ballywalter does not offer the slopes of Dargle Valley, the setup team therefore utilised another tricky aspect of shooting – the dark. It felt as if the majority of the targets had been placed in dark spots around the course, creating a struggle to find a point of focus, and playing havoc with the compounders’ elaborate sights.

On day one we opened on a pair of capercaillies, black birds with little in the way of colour. With the overcast weather and the natural dullness of the forest, I was facing an inky blur. With me was Will who hates this particular target – starting on it because he made the mistake of saying out loud how much he hates the target, within earshot of whoever did the target groups.

As always, the dromaeosaur (I can’t call it a velociraptor because it’s too tall to be one and is more like a deinonychus) was out on the course, target 1. I always want to do well on this target, and it wouldn’t do for a dinosaur nerd like me to mess it up.

Across the course the setup team managed to take advantage of natural shooting lanes to both frame the target beautifully and create a challenging shot. The marlin was an example of this, as we stood in the dank shadows of a rain drenched canopy, shooting at a large, narrow target glowing in the open light.

Another was the leaning bear or twerking bear if you ask Steven Wall Morris what it’s called. Behind this target is the uncomprehending chaos of ravaged nature. All I could discern was a fallen tree, and the rest was an erratic mismatch of branches, twigs, and ivy. Sending arrows into this is like throwing them into the deepest part of the ocean. You’re not getting in there to get them back. And to make you wince even more, Will missed twice and lost both his arrows in this abyssal mulch.

We all have a target or targets that could be considered adversarial. These can change over time as we get better at them. For example, the SRT standing hare caused me so much grief that I went and bought one for the garden to practice on.

In the here and now, it is the climbing lynx. I first encountered this target a few years ago shooting with Slaney Archers. It calls a halt to my shooting momentum, putting a stop to any rolling success. Naturally, as this arrow-bane of a target was becoming an obstacle for me, my own club decided we also needed one.

My trick with it, is somehow getting an arrow to pass between the body and the tree the target is fixed to. Seems impossible, but I make it happen. On the first day this did happen, and then I sent my second arrow wide right for another miss. Thankfully I did manage to find it amongst the ivy.

Now Day 2 was a different affair. For one thing it wasn’t raining, and it was warm. It was also the second day that the majority of those attending had signed up for and so there were many from Ballyvally including Frank Mulligan and his granddaughter (relentless in not giving line-cutters I’m told) and Marion Patterson, one of the few still shooting compound barebow.

The vaunted Kathryn Morton was present for both days, flashbacks of Tollymore 2018 clear in her eyes on day one. More recently she had been attending the British Field Championships in England, taking silver in her Senior Barebow category.

Despite the better weather conditions I was 10 points down on my day 1 score. Another of the peculiarities of field archery. Furthermore as often happens on the second day with me on 3D rounds, any target I shot well on the first day I shot poorly on the second, and anything I shot poorly on the first day, I did well on, on the second day. I don’t get it either.

Whilst this was a casual shoot, and no medals were given out, anyone who did put a score card in had their results uploaded to Ianseo. Furthermore, within Lough Cuan Bowmen is a progress badge scheme, in which archers are awarded various badges for gaining knowledge and experience in Certain areas. Awaiting receipt of their Field Badges are, Jordon and Sian McBroom, whilst Eli and Paul Quinn only need to attend one more field/3D round to get theirs. For the setup involved with this competition, Renee McDowell and William Clendinning achieved their volunteer badges. Congratulations to them all.