This year’s festival, now in its third edition, promises something very different from all its precedents. It will be a celebration not only of the discipline of archery but also of its growing reach and resonance in Irish communities. Perhaps…
Bearpaw’s Arrow Analyser So first up for the Archer Gear Review is the Bearpaw Arrow Analyzer. So what does an Arrow Analyzer do, well it measures the weight, the spine and estimates the straightness of the arrows. The analyzer comes…...
More quick interviews with archers here in the north and elsewhere. Archers Talkin' Archery is back!
The dimly lit, rain-soaked cinemas of 1980s Soviet life provided brief but significant havens. Among the films, Sergei Tarasov's 1985 Чернaя стрела (The Black Arrow) stood out not only as entertainment but also as an event—an artefact of a society struggling with its paradoxes. Under the heavy shadow of a collapsing Soviet ideology, this rendition of Robert Louis Stevenson's story connected as both metaphor and adventure, a revolt against the ordinary disguised as historical epic.
More quick interviews with archers here in the north and elsewhere. Archers Talkin' Archery is back!
More quick interviews with archers here in the north and elsewhere. Archers Talkin' Archery is back!
A life spent among words—their ripples, their surges, their deceptive ebbs—is also a life surrendered to a quiet yet consuming enchantment. The strangely beautiful paths they carve alternate between the solid ground of reality and the mercurial landscapes uplifted in…...
Edward of Woodstock, the Black Prince—his name, steeped in ink as dark as a storm-laden sky, calls forth images of a knight both magnificent and terrible, a figure who rode the tangled path between chivalry and carnage. The chronicles recount…...
Conor, hi and welcome to this, our 24th interview and I’m delighted you are our archer of the moment for today’s interview.
Will we learn some new aspects of your life through this… I’m sure the answer shall be a firm yes, so lets make a start.
Welcome, readers! This time, I’ve got something for you that’s bound to ruffle some feathers—but hey, that’s the whole point of this column. It’s here to provoke, to poke, and to stick a thorn right where it hurts the most. Remember, though, the conversation doesn’t end here—I’m eagerly awaiting your responses! Be outraged, tear my opinions to shreds, and “smack my controversy” as hard as you can!
Longtime readers will undoubtedly have noticed that I’ve always been rather fascinated by the history part of archery. The bow has a way of reaching through the centuries, linking us to people who stood before making their release under skies numerous times changed yet still creating that same smooth arc. However this time, I have chosen to go a little further under the covers of the books, dusting off old tomes and brushing aside forgotten fables, to whisk you away into the first few decades of the 20th century. A story of how archery, an ancient art, found itself in that lovely juxtaposition of sitting with one foot firmly implanted in preserving tradition while the other foot fits oddly into a shoe designed to help you navigate modern chaos.
2024… Another very busy and energetic IFAF year.
To commence, Martin Moylan and Don Priestly, both who had spent time on the IFAF committee and who sadly passed away during the year, were fondly remembered.
There are books that do not simply live upon shelves but rather take root in the hollows of your chest, pulsing in quiet defiance of forgetfulness. Matt Latimer’s The Phoenix Archer is such a book, not content to merely be read but insisting upon being absorbed, like breath, like blood. To enter its pages is not a choice; it is an inevitability, a surrender to a world that demands not only attention but allegiance.
More quick interviews with archers here in the north and elsewhere. Archers Talkin' Archery is back!
C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia is a work so steeped in allegory that every element feels laden with meaning. Among these, the bow—gifted to Susan Pevensie—stands out as a symbol not only of strength and discipline but of choice, a curious mix of autonomy and submission to a higher purpose. I often reflect on this choice as I hold manuscripts in my hands, wondering if the writer truly understands the weapon they wield. A bow, after all, is not a casual gift. It demands skill, precision, and faith, not unlike the very act of writing itself. Lewis was a writer who understood the importance of symbols. His life, punctuated by tragedy and a long wrestling match with faith, shaped his fiction in profound ways. Raised in a bookish home, he lost his mother at a young age and endured the horrors of the First World War—a crucible that left him both skeptical of shallow optimism and hungry for meaning.