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…
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,…
The Mane, Huzken (The Venom State), City Capital Lajo – Typhon Resurgence, Day 15 Despite the disaster that was the culling contract in Vrenki, it was good to be back home, Fergus thought. For one thing they had made a…
Chapter 3 of Bowhunter
The Acromion Divot A Movement-Based Approach to the Bow Shoulder A Perspective on Movement I want to start by saying that I am not an archery coach, and I am under no delusion that I am. What I do have,…
Very rarely in our lives do we meet someone who, through their very existence, inspires in us the desire to become better. No one is born with that gift. It demands sacrifice, and it often grows out of difficult—sometimes dramatic—events.…
Which servant flies truer than any oath, drinks the heat of a living wrist, obeys a boy’s tremor and a god’s vanity, and yet carries a sovereignty that begins at release and ends only where the point decides? A glove…
In archery, the follow-through is arguably more critical than in golf or tennis, because the “engine” of the shot is the tension in your own body. While the arrow leaves the bow quickly, any collapse or movement at the moment…
Author: Dr. Antti Rintanen The paradox of archery performance lies in its demands: absolute physical stillness paired with intense mental alertness. Research demonstrates that elite archers who maintain lower heart rates during competition tend to score higher than those with…
TIFAM Issue 49 (Dec 2025) mixes club news, interviews, competition coverage, photo specials, and seasonal fiction: it opens with a Christmas message from the team and features editor Shelly Mooney (historian/artist/writer and longbow archer with Dunbrody Archers, Wexford) plus her…
A pale field, washed like chapel plaster after incense has settled, holds its own weather, and in that weather a severed head—half mask, half reliquary—floats as if a saint had been converted into an instrument, while the word Ariette (petite…
The first bamboo bow that entered my life never breathed Indian heat; it lived inside a grainy photograph pinned above my crowded desk in Portlaoise, between a postcard of Velázquez and a stained reading timetable. The photograph came from an…
Rome Learns Distance The arrowhead rose from the Mesopotamian soil like a small dark tooth, green under its rust as though it had grown there with the barley. A man in a fluorescent vest and cracked boots—whatever name his century…
The Mane, Sovereign Kingdom of Ebvren (The Barren State), City Capital Vrenki – Typhon Resurgence, Day 10 Whatever Ebvren, and by extension its capital city Vrenki, had to claim in terms of sovereignty, was beyond Fergus Reeves. If it wasn’t…
Late light spills over a summer field that could belong to any stop on the World Cup caravan—air thick as steamed linen in Shanghai, sharp as dry paper in Madrid—and in that blur of geography the camera for Mr and…
November carries a clear marker for The Irish Field Archery Monthly as Issue 48 completes four uninterrupted years of publication, reflection, and field-bred argument. The magazine stands as a continuous conversation between cold shoots and warm rooms, between physical discipline…
Sometime ago I came across a peculiar, and dare I say comical, tid-bit of archery lore. When reading 1411 QI Facts To Knock You Sideways, there came an entry that excited me greatly as it was archery related. In the…