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 bark and branch – something stirred again last weekend. Not a reawakening, no; that would imply dormancy. More a remembering. A certain alignment of scent, sound, and arrow-flight that reminded me I once belonged to this forest fraternity. And if you ask me, I still do.
Before I started minding the words for TIFAM, before committee work and digital glare became the daily business, I was proud to call myself a member of Laois Archery. Not in the embroidered-jacket, handshake-in-a-pub sense, but properly – in the muck-and-midges way, where kinship is built one misfired arrow at a time. And last weekend, standing again among them in the shifting green, I remembered what that meant. Or rather, I felt it. You can’t remember a thing like that with your head.
Two days of Field and Hunter rounds. And not the tamed-down version sometimes trotted out like fairground fare. No – this was Laois Archery. Which means each peg was placed by someone who shoots, each lane cleared by someone who knows the width of a longbow’s whisper, and each awkward angle chosen with just enough cruelty to make you question your gods. These weren’t casual strolls through leaf-flickered paths. They were trials. Demanding. Technical. Honest.
Let me walk you through it, for those of you reading from softer desks and gentler sports.
The Field Round, as codified by the IFAA and embraced by the IFAF, comprises 28 targets placed at marked distances, ranging from 20 feet to a humbling 80 yards. Archers shoot four arrows per target, usually from a single stake, at a black-and-white paper face where the centre (or “spot”) yields the top score of 5, the next ring 4, and so on. It’s arithmetic served with humility – one glance too many at the foliage, one twitch in the grip, and your proud arrow sails just enough to remind you who’s in charge.
The Hunter Round, the second half of the challenge, mirrors the Field’s structure: 28 targets, four arrows each. But now, the distances are unmarked. Uncertainty enters the bloodstream. The targets wear a different face – black, with a white centre – offering the same score zones but a crueler theatre. You must estimate. You must trust. You must make peace with margin and memory. Together, the rounds span 56 targets over two days – a true marathon, not only of sinew and aim but of psyche.
Now add Clonkeen’s natural features – gaps barely wide enough for a shaft to pass without singing bark, hills that smirk at your footing, flint elements underfoot waiting to betray the hurried stance. Add branches like witch-fingers, brambles with something personal against your trousers, and distances more fit for war than sport. Sixty, seventy, eighty yards through such terrain isn’t practice. It’s confession.
Then consider this: paper does not forgive. Unlike 3D rounds, where a misplaced shot might graze a foam flank and still scrape a score, paper targets demand exactness. Miss the rings and you write a zero. Paper has no softness. No ears, no tails, no cheat lines. You either touch truth or you don’t.
Still, none of this – not the format, the fatigue, the rigour – is what I really came to speak of. Because what Laois Archery offers goes beyond rulebooks and target faces. What was revealed to me in those woods, after too many months behind a screen, was something less tangible but far more vital.
I came with my son, Jan. Six years old. Wide-eyed. Unspoiled by scoresheets. Still bright enough to believe every arrow carries magic, that bows are older than time, and that grown men arguing about groupings are probably doing something very important. He stood among the trees as if he’d been invited by them personally.
Anto sat down beside him and showed him how to juggle stones – not just to pass time, but to offer something enduring: a flicker of happiness, a spark of joy. There was a kind of power in that small act, an intention as clean and ancient as a circle drawn in earth. And it worked. My boy laughed. The stones danced briefly in the air like planets that knew their orbit. For a moment, I saw in his face the same thing I once carried in mine.
Liam McDonald and Marian Boyers, guests for the shoot, appeared with a young dog – and you know what they say about dogs. They sense things. And this one, wagging its tail, with a calm gaze, read the space like a holy book. You can’t fool animals. This puppy knew it had found itself among decent people.
Dave Leigh, visiting from Galtee Archers, sat in his folding chair like a modern druid, scratching behind the dog’s ear, half-smiling at the forest’s hush. Georgy bustling about, Emlin always somewhere at the edge keeping things moving, Nick Anton with that sharp, watchful eye ensuring the day ran like a clean arrow through calm air. These are not the parts of a committee – these are organs of a living being. This club breathes, it pulses, and every member is a note in that great rhythm.
Yes, the shoot was hard. That’s not the point. The point is: nobody shoots alone here. Arrows may fly solo, but archers don’t. We had bickering, sure – what crew doesn’t? Arguing about distances, grip pressure, fletching choices – all said with emotion, none with cruelty. That’s the thing. There’s a difference between correction and condemnation, and Laois Archery knows it well.
I’ve wandered through plenty of clubs. Some gleam with medals but lack the human warmth that makes a body feel welcome. Others mean well, but falter in execution. Laois doesn’t pretend to be perfect. That’s the secret. It accepts its own wild edges and, in doing so, accepts yours. You’re not loved here because it’s polite – you’re seen. With your crooked elbow, your bad jokes, your last-place score, your first-place effort. You’re seen, and you’re kept.
It is this strange alchemy – not built of rituals or platitudes – that makes them different. It’s not brotherhood in the Hollywood sense. It’s not about hugs or hashtags. It’s more elemental. More Irish, if I may say so – that quiet, weathered sense of mutual recognition. A nod across a muddy path. A cup of too-strong tea. The offer of a seat when you didn’t ask.
You feel it in the way they greet your child, in the way they scold without wounding, in the way no one keeps count of who packed the last target away. And you feel it, most of all, in the air – not a metaphorical air, but the literal air around the shooting line, thick with effort and ease alike.
There was a moment, late on the second day, when the light had gone a little gold – not sunset yet, but close enough for sentiment – and I looked around. Anto and Jan were poking at moss on a rock. The dog was asleep beside Liam’s boot. Marian was saying something to Georgy about lost arrows. And I thought: this is it. This is what I’d forgotten.
That we’re not just archers. We are stewards of a ritual older than language, older than maps. Each time we draw a bow, we redraw the first line between the self and the world. We measure distance not just in yards, but in moments of becoming. A Field Round isn’t a competition. It’s a meditation. A Hunter Round isn’t about estimation. It’s about trust.
Archery, at its core, is an act of reconciliation – between the known and the unknown, the visible and the felt. The arrow is our question. The target does not answer. But we shoot anyway.
That’s why I love it. That’s why Laois Archery matters. Because they haven’t forgotten that.
So to the people – to Nick, Emlin, Georgy, and all who walked those trails – I offer my thanks. And to the guests – Dave, Marian, Liam – who stepped into the woods with us and felt the rhythm – you were part of it, even if only for those two days. Not because you earned it, but because you recognised it.
You reminded me that the world still contains places where you are seen as you are, and where that is enough.
Maybe one day I’ll find a name for this thing I’ve tried to describe. That odd warmth in the ribs, that recognition between strangers, that acceptance which is neither demanded nor explained. Or maybe it will remain unnamed, like most sacred things.
But I know where it lives.
It lives in Clonkeen Woods.
