Injury Time 27sept2024

This program is sponsored by Calmore Abbey and Gardens. The focus of tonight's program is shooting, with guests John McDermott and his son Sean, who are both involved in the sport. They discuss their experiences shooting for food in their youth and the different types of birds they would hunt. They also mention the use of guns and the importance of conservation. They talk about their hunting practices and the areas they would frequent. John shares a story about a man who was skilled at hunting with good manners. This program is kindly sponsored by Calmore Abbey and Gardens, 095 52001. Good evening listeners, you're welcome to Injury Time, the final Injury Time program of September 2024, and the focus of tonight's program is the wonderful sport of shooting and I'm joined in studio by John McDermott, who hails from Ayrcourt on the banks of the broad majestic Shannon, as Shane McGowan famously wrote, and he's with his son Sean who is achieving very highly in the sport and we want to make the listeners aware of all of that. And also we're honoured to have Shane Biscott with us, Shane is a shooting instructor of many many years experience and he just knows the sport inside out, residing presently near Clegane, and we'll put Shane's phone number out later for anyone who might be interested in taking up the sport, and Shane has been in the full throes of shooting over a very long period of time and at the higher end, up at Olympic level and so on, so lads, collectively it's a great honour to have you here, you're welcome to Conamara Community Radio, and John we're going to kick off with you, and I was touching base with you and Sean last night just to get a handle on the sport ahead of this interview and you had a, I thought it was an iconic line, you know, we're shooting for the table, and you might bring us back to your youth and what that means, because maybe there's a lot of misinformation out there in terms of, you know, shooting in the natural environment and what it involves and maybe the ethos and all of that kind of thing, so, here's your chance now John, just bring us back. I went to Conamara shooting for the table because that's what we had to do, you know, and where I come from, I came from Confort, and it's called the Callows, and we were rare on wild game, and we're rare on rabbit, and we're rare on perch, and we're rare on pike, so that's what you had to do, you had to go out and shoot, and from the age of 10, you went with your dad, and your job was more or less to pick up the birds or to go, you were at the beaters it was called, and you went inside the rushes and you beat the whole way in and they waited to shoot, but you'd be averaging that day, you know, you had to shoot an average of 10 or 12 birds per head, and then as we got older, when we came to 16, we were allowed to shoot ourselves, but that's what it really was, you had to, and you had a group of people, you had a group of maybe 6 or 7 going out to shoot, and then on the Monday, that was the hardest day, you'd wait for your father to come home from work, from born and born, and you'd turn off the television, you were given a big cardboard box, and you went down to the plucking, and you had to pluck an average of 50 birds, and you would race home from school then, on Tuesday for the first feed, and then you'd probably get another dinner, and again on the Thursday, which would be even nicer because they would be there for a few more days, and that was the tradition, and then we had a freezer, we were the very first at Transfer to have a freezer, and the freezer was packed, and you had pike perch, and you had loads of duck, and loads of pheasants, so that was the start of it, and then during the year you would be lucky. Some of the listeners, John, might know what the word Callows means, you might explain it to them. Callows is lands of floods, and when the River Shannon rises, not all our land, but our land is flooding, we have an average of 360 acres between us and the whole lot, and that floods up, and when it floods up then, when the wild birds come in, from South Africa or France, they would come and stay in the callow because of the feed, the grass is really sweet. What species of pheasants are you talking about? We'd start off at the beginning of the first of September, you'd be shooting the local duck, now we'd never, I won't say we'd never, you'd do your living best to never shoot a female, we always shoot the mallard, the male mallard, and that's what keeps the growth up, and that's what keeps the strength of the bird up, and that was the first thing, and then when the wigeon would come, the wigeon would come in then, and they would be coming to thousands at that time, thousands, and then you'd have, there was different types of wigeon, there was the pintail wigeon were the special ones, they were a massive big bud, lovely pintail in them, and they would come into the woods, and then you had another breed then of the teal, the teal were small, fast, really fast bud, really tasty bud, and then the golden plover would come, the lapwing would come too, but we never shot lapwings, never shot lapwings, in the olden days they did, the stewards of lapwings, but then the golden plover would come, they would come in, there were thousands of lapwings, and that was a tremendous sport, sport plus everything that's eaten, you know. Just ask John, how many families that we're looking at here would have gone through the same experience as you? It's a very colourful descriptive the way you're, you know, were there several families along a stretch of the River Shanna that were doing this process? Well in Camford alone there was 52 houses when I grew up, and everyone was shot, everybody shot, there was a gun in every house, our two were three or four guns, in our house at one stage there would have been three, four, five, six, seven, seven guns in our house, Daddy had three, I had two, my brother had two. Can I ask where were these guns procured or how were they procured? In the olden days they were just left in the club, but Daddy always had, he used to use the lockers that you see in the schools today, he always had one of them, the only small key, and then the law was changed that you had to have a professional lock, a professional gun safe, and that's what we did, we always had one of them, but that was always kept also in another place, and also kept in a, that was also kept in a storage as well, and then that was always kept in a little secret room as well, with a trap door. Out of curiosity, I was invited on a number of occasions down to Waterford to a friend of mine who farms there, and one of his wonderful hobbies was to go out in a punt, a punt, a flat bottom boat, and he would lie on his stomach on this punt, and paddle his way out into the estuary, and he had on it what he called a 4-4, a punt gun. It was so heavy that you couldn't use it, holding it in your hands, you strapped it on to the back of the punt, and the only snag was that having paddled his way out to these quantities of maraad or what do you, when he fired, he would wake up 30 minutes later, because the exhaustion from this thing was nothing much. Have you ever used one? Yes, I did it, I did it, yes. There was one in Clantford, a man had one in Clantford, and it was, as you said, a pump gun. It was like a big canoe, and you could set into it, and the gun was attached. Now it was like a small cannon, and that was loaded with everything. They used to put little staples, and try and fatten him a bit, and put in the gunpowder. But our joy was to sit on your dad's lap, and be waiting, and when the gun went off, you drove into the rushes, and then you shaped the boat to where the birds were, and then you kind of made a knife, and when they blew up, when they got up there, then you fired, you pulled it, it's like a trigger, pull it a bit, and the gun, from the recoil of the gun, the boat would fly backwards out of the rushes, and that was like a trigger, it would whoomp, just fly out, and then you go back and pick up your keel, you know. You were telling me, John, that it's never allowed, when you're out, to shoot from a moving boat. No. I'm just intrigued by that. Just give the listeners the idea that, okay, you're going out, how do you set up, what do you bring with you, and just the process? The process, just an ordinary day student, say Saturday morning shooting, would be 4.30 on the water, right, but first to get to the water, the water would rise so high, that the boat would come up along, on the road, and you'd go so far on the road, and then you would carry your outboard and stuff and put it on the engine, and then you would go out, right. Now, most of the birds would be inland, mostly, but a lot of it, the reason that shooting is more or less, the birds that are lying in the rushes, it's very unfair, if you're there with an outboard engine, right, and you're driving along, and next thing your outboard gets up 30, 40 yards, or say, apologize, say 60 yards, and you've an outboard engine, you could open it up and catch up to them. You know, very unfair. If you want to do it right, get out of your boat and walk the rushes, with your dog, and let the dog go inside them bees, and then when they get up, bang, that's a fair sport, you know. So is it a key, ongoing principle for you, that when you're out in the wild, be it in the Midlands, or be it here in West Conmara, in a boat, you'll always stop the boat? We'll always, yeah, you have your areas, you'd have your special places, like, you know, I remember telling you, with 54, sorry, 52 houses, and somebody always having a go, you always had your own areas, like fishing here in Conamara, you had your own area, you know, you had, Coolham had his own spot, and the house had their own spot, you had, or Rourke, he was a great shot, Billy Rourke's three, he's dead, or the Mercy's passed away, and so has my dad and all, they had their own spots, you know, you had the gully, and then you had character, then you had Clammack Nye's, but before Clammack Nye's we'd go, you know. You were telling me about a man as well, John, who had a real sense of conservation, in terms of, you know, he'd always go for the manners, do you remember you were telling me that story, you might tell the listeners that, because this fella had it off to a fine artist. He had, yeah, I was just talking to his son actually, coming up, Ciaran Coughlin, and I was just asking Ciaran what was the most he ever shot, and what was the best shoot he ever had, at the one, he used to, sorry, he used to use a repeater, repeaters had five shots at one time, now they're down to three shots, but out of the, he fired four shots out of the repeater, and he knocked five wild geese, that's a good shot he had, but his father, again, he would not fire a shot unless he was 100%, because people don't realise that a box of cartridges was more expensive than a week's wages in Bornemona. Wow. One box, 25 shots, so it was very few, but he had a family of 14. Okay. Okay, and again, he was only, he was on the council, you know, a man working on the council, and he would keep an eye out of where they were laying, where the birds were laying, and then he'd watch when she'd come mating and she'd be covered, you know, and then when the young would be born, then he'd go out, even though to be, I won't say out of the season, we call it out of season now, but in them days, I don't think, you know, I'm talking 70 years ago, his son is 72 or maybe, you know, even more, you know, and he would shoot the mallards, but he'd always make sure that the little chicks were born. Yeah, you were saying there might be, for example, up to six mallards in a specific area, which would be like too many. That's what's happening nowadays. Okay, and he'd bring it back down to two, let's say. So, you know, is this something that people in the shooting game just don't get enough credit for, or haven't over the years? That's right, that's definitely one you're taking. I think it's worth adding here for the listeners, it seems bizarre when we're talking about shooting games, that we can also add the words conservation to that. And yet, I have seen proven to me all my life, and I'm 71 years old, I've been shooting since I was 10. The one thing I know about game shooting people is they are the one people in Ireland who do more for conservation of our game species than anyone else. Yeah, he's totally right in that. And I'm on about myself and my son, and the people that we shoot. I guarantee you, you'll see no mink around our lakes. I guarantee you that. I guarantee you, you won't see 10 or 12 mallards, which I'm 7 or 8, female. And I guarantee you, you'll see the birds, what they should be, around four pound weight. It's as simple as that, that's a mallard. The shooting has started now since the 1st of September. We have been out a little bit. And I tell the truth, I have shot three ducks this year. And you have shot? A goose. A goose. But we won't go down that road, because I don't know, did he shoot him either? But anyway, that's the present of the minute. But that's what we shot. And we make sure, and I make sure, I can bring you straight to this day, where there's exactly 10 otters, there's 4 otters, it's too large of a mule and lake, there's 4 otters in Moorlough and the 4 below in Calais. I can bring you exactly where they are, I know exactly how many hawks, I know all this. I bet you there's no cats, there's no wild cats around our area. Wild cats, I mean. And that's what they do. Foxes, of course they control the foxes. Control of the world, you know. There's nobody else to kill. The great crows, of course we murder the great crows. The magpies, they do more damage than anything, you know. And should it be brought in the cold? No, if people just understand that they can be controlled by it, you know. But, you know, if you look at another side of it, the seals. I remember Lord Ambassador Mark Killaloe coming in and we were talking about the seals, especially remembering about how much seals there is in Ireland. And I'm talking about 15 years ago, Mark Killaloe actually one time was the Minister for Fisheries and he was Minister for P&T we called it at the time. And I remember coming in, he said that the amount of seals in Ireland, that was something with the feeding, was equivalent to what the Irish fleet were taking as well. The amount of seals, the feed of the seals in Ireland, you know. So, people in the shooting game are protecting the ecological balance. And biodiversity thrives in places like Llanfair to this day. Yes, and we also have our clubs there. And they have the club here in the letter fracking that the clubman gives them. But we have to bring in so many, we have to bring in so many wings of great crows, so many magpies. We have to, you know, it's 50. On average it's 10 each, isn't it? Yeah, but they bring in 10. And a fox's tail, it will go fox hunting. And it's all controlled. You go down to a wood and nearly every farmer will call you and ask you, listen, I see a four there. Okay, well I want the four. You're not going to go down and shoot the four foxes. You're going to take two out of the control. So you're saying that there is a very kind of harmonious, symbiotic relationship, shall we say, between the gun clubs and the farmers, which is a huge part of the tradition over the years. There is. And remember also the hunting on horses, like, you know, you know, there's no killing nowadays, you know. That's the same way. All the farmers, you wouldn't be allowed into a farmer's land unless it was, unless they wanted you into it, you know. You just can't open the gate and go into it, you know. And you never would. And another thing too, if you were out hunting pheasants, especially in the forest, if you were out hunting pheasants and you would, you know, you knew there were pheasants in here, if a man had a piece of grain sowed or something, you know, and you shot a pair of pheasants in it, well, the first man you would offer them is to the farmer. To the man, yes. Nowadays, you know. And going back to what you say, at home, we had a lot of bog land, the stuff right off the side of the woods, right. And my father, he would till, he would till, you'd till a quarter acre there and a quarter acre here, and you'd go into Waller's in Bannar, and they'd give you all the bad grain. And all you do is scatter and hop it to grow. You know, you fed it, you know. And you'd go to the potatoes and you'd let them grow, and you'd go to the turnips and you'd let that, you know, you fed them naturally. Shane. Just another thought. So far as our shooting is concerned, the premise of you may not shoot until you have put in, you need to contribute before you harvest. You need to sow before you reap a product. And that's the essence of any fine shooting man or lady, that they're going out there, they're looking after their shooting grounds, they're feeding their animals, they're reducing the numbers of predators, and then you can justify taking a return. That superbly puts you in, I have to say. It is, yeah. And remember, you see, our club, our club is tremendous. I mean, the federation now of the clay shooting is taken over by Richard Cotton, which would be the grandson of the man I'm telling you about that used to shoot the pheasants. We call it out of season now, but in them days, you know, he definitely needed food. But they raised, or could raise, 2,000 pheasants. And I tell them about 10 years ago here, I brought back 300 chicks. I brought back 300 chicks, three. I got them from a man called Kieran Quinn. They were kept in Kieran Quinn's land. So you know how I got them now, I'll be saying that now too. And I brought them back and let them off everywhere. And just to, so we're talking about shooting here to the listeners in the context of the natural, outdoor, wild, and at a later juncture in this program, we'll focus in on the clay pigeon shooting, the competitive end, and in particular, Sean, on your own achievements to date. So just to clarify for the listeners first, there isn't a competitive structure for out in the wild shooting, is there, John or Shane? There isn't. No. So it indicates that one team goes on one stretch of bog and another team goes on another and they compete and whoever comes back puts them off. There is no such structure. No. And why is that not the case? It's simple enough. The one thing that we don't like to do is to start shooting simply to beat somebody else. What we're doing is we're shooting for the table. John said it. Now as a matter of fact, I don't shoot game anymore. I'm part and parcel of that sort of thing. But the reality is that you don't want competition over some wonderful asset. You just want to enjoy that asset, preserve that asset. Okay, but I think it would be fair to say that, you know, Sean is in the clay pigeon shooting competitive business at the moment and doing very well for himself, he would have learned the ropes out in the wild. Almost definitely. So that's where he would have served his apprenticeship in terms of being in a position where he could go in and compete in clay pigeon. That would be the case, Sean, wouldn't it? It would, yeah. Let's just focus on you for a minute. Tell us about your first memory of shooting, being out with your dad, I presume. First memory, I was six years old, let's say. Oh wow. And dad was bringing some of his friends out to show them how it's done. And I was just watching. I was in the back of the car. I was just fascinated, really, about just seeing the clays going out and breaking them. So I've always kind of had an interest but never really let out until the age of 10, really. We were out on the River Shannon and I fell in love with it. Just being in the pure wild, like no screens, no nothing, just pure nature. So how do you compare the pure wild natural environment of the Midlands, the Shannon Basin, shall we say, with the ruggedness of West Connemara? Which do you prefer? Is it the same when it comes down to it? Most definitely not the same. I think right now I prefer Connemara because I haven't been out in the Shannon properly yet. But it's very different. Out in Connemara, you're never really on a boat. You're just kind of mostly walking. And on the Shannon, you're always in the boat and you're pulling up and stopping at all these spots. And which do you prefer, like having the boat involved or not involved? I would say not. You showed me a picture yesterday and you were well camouflaged. You might tell the listeners. You'd want to be well camouflaged because you wouldn't think it, but all birds are very smart. They recognise every rock, every white everywhere. So if they see any white in your face or anything, they won't go near you at all. You have to stay down, stay low and be covered. That goose that you got recently, just before we take the break and your dad will introduce the couple of songs we've lined up, will you just tell the listeners just the process involved there and how you had success? Well, Dad was driving on the road and he was looking in all the fields and he looked left into a lovely green field and sees about 30 geese and we said we might as well go down to them because he only has the 16 days to do it. So he drove back down to the house and picked me up and in about maybe three minutes we were ready on the road, already down. And we were going to walk up just a little laneway up beside the field and we couldn't because if we got any closer they would have flew away. So we had to go all the way back around some back road and start walking, nearly crawling through the fields up in behind walls and just pray. And then just explain to the listeners so you get your fixed position now and you're within range. So what's the actual technical shooting process then? Just to give the listeners kind of a visual because there's not too many involved in shooting. Particularly your age would say locally. You could get some either sitting on the water walking on land or flying over you but these ones were sitting on the land so we knew they were going to fly up and they weren't going to fly left or right straight away so what you'd want to do is you'd want to cover over the bird so they're flying up into the shot. We never shoot at the ground. It's just, we think it's unfair. There's no sport, no fun in it. For the geese, you know, it was a million to one chance that we did get a shot at them, you know. And when you did fire, I think, when we fired, I should say you know, they were about 60, 65 yards and it was a great shot. But what she and I do, yes, of course we do use dogs for if I've beaten rushes and stuff like that and for the snipe as well, you know. Actually, I bought Sean a present. We bought, I should say, Marion's present and we bought him a present. We went out to buy one dog and he couldn't make his mind up so now we have two. Two beautiful springers. Yes, so they'll play their part. Now John, you're going to introduce two iconic songs or often sang while you're out on the hunt, shall we say. Yes, they're nearly always sang, because you know, as soon as the shoot is over we must have come home in the dark, you know what I mean. You go down and there's three flights. You're coming home at night and it's dusk. And it's amazing the way your eyes and Shane will be if you go down a pitch dark and after about a few minutes your eyes are able to focus in, they can see. So people say, but it's the most beautiful thing to be coming home on the River Shannon unless you're coming to the town of Banner where it is parked, because my parents live in Banner. And we have the shooting board, as they call it, parked on the Galway side in Banner but you have to go through the bridge, so you'll be coming home and you'll all be singing the Galway Shawl or the other way, always. The whole lot of the place will be alive. And then as soon as you come under the bridge of Banner you go straight into the Afri Rover. But you don't have to do much. It's sang by Johnny McEvoy whose actually parents came from Clantford. He's a Galway man. He's not a Banner man, Todd, even though he wrote about Banner. And would be kind of well related through marriage especially, you know. So that's where the two songs came from. Well, thank you for that, John. We're going to run with the two songs now. Rover, I have been And rover, I will stay Unto that faithful county dear I will return some day To follow how I love you With your heathered stair-chair Silently the peaceful broadness calls Her son from far and near Oh, can't she I long to see When the wood-vine's in full bloom Or show the fields around her band Hear the wild birds in full stew That's not the noise I see you Want to battle her we'll stray But sister men will drink and tear Of the ones that got away Oh, there's still in exile Lots of friends I used to know Till I was five till I hid Where great sportsmen are laid alone I come here and see you Wearing ties of knighted clay So as you see you won't know no more I must be on my way Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na Oh yeah! Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na Oh yeah! May the drums reply upon the fire Bring the keggin' from the fire Let the blacksmith sing his revel song Let the porters pass his yarn Come, lovely friend and neighbor Fill your glasses to the brim And we toast our happy hero The rover I will be And the rover I will play On to the faithful county dear I will return some day Oh boy, how I love you With your weathered tender I can see the people rushin' home Their sons so far and near The rover I have ridden And the rover I will play On to the faithful county dear I will return some day Oh boy, how I love you With your weathered tender I can see the people rushin' home Their sons so far and near Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na Na-na-na-na-na-na-na Na-na-na-na-na-na-na Na-na-na-na-na-na-na Na-na-na-na-na-na-na Na-na-na-na-na-na-na Na-na-na-na-na-na-na Na-na-na-na-na-na-na In awe and awe The county guard waits One pleasant evening In a month of May I spied a kind Both rare and handsome And a beauty for me Took my breath away She kept on talking We kept on walking Till our father's cottage It came into view She said, come in, son I'll meet me father I'll play the beatin' The foggy tune She shut me down there Beside the turf I could see her father He was six feet tall And a mother's son The castle by the lake But all I could think about Was the girl they shot She wore no jewels No costly diamonds No paint, no conduct Na-na-na-na-na-na-na She wore a heart With a ribbon on it And around her shoulder Said, darling, son I'll play the blackbird The song of barley Our Rodney's glory And the foggy tune And she sang it, you know Like an Irish lyre And her tears they fell from Her eyes so true It was early, early Early in the morning I picked her up Sweet darling, darling I smiled and thanked her She cried and kissed me And my eyes were made to weep The girl they shot She wore no jewels No costly diamonds No paint, no conduct Na-na-na-na-na-na-na She wore a heart With a ribbon on it And around her shoulder Said, darling, son And around her shoulder Said, darling, son You're welcome back listeners to part two. I'm in studio with Sean McDermott and his father, John McDermott and Shane Biskill and they're all in The Shooting Game and it's wonderfully educating just to listen to these guys and the love they have for their sport, like it's incredible We're going to focus, Sean, on your achievements in the second part of this programme and before I talk to you about your grandfather and the level he was at and the clay pigeon shooting tradition and all of that will you just describe to the listeners what a clay pigeon shoot infrastructure is how do the organisers set up for the shoot so that people can have a visual on what actually what kind of an apparatus is there and how it works Right, so clay pigeon shooting and hunting are nearly completely different things the only similarity is you're using a gun, that's it so what a clay shooting pigeon is, is you have your electric trap and you have many different types of shooting so you could have springer teal or down the line or crosshairs or anything so you want different types of stands and stations so you could have maybe eight shots in one stand and maybe ten or twelve in the other normally it's scored out of fifty and you have five people competing in each stand so after five shots you switch over and switch and switch Can I just ask, over what length of time, so it's like different rounds so you go from stand to stand, like a round one, round two so what's the duration of the competition, these fifty shots that you hit will be what do you hit them within an hour, within two hours? You hit them in an hour and a half, an hour and a half really So that's the duration of the competition, that's it Yes So do you get timely breaks in between where you can catch a breath and you know, do you get a chance to Yes, so once you have your shots fired you wait for the rest of the players on your team to fire their shots as well Ok, so we were talking last night, so is it a combination of like vertical, oblique and horizontal lines that you're shooting Yes I couldn't, I was very taken aback, you told me that there's some shots where you're pure vertical, you're shooting straight up I would have thought all the shots would be oblique, like at a diagonal, but that's not necessarily the case Yes John, yeah And what Sean has done about it is called a sporting, that's a sporting table he's done about it with different diagonals, different, you know, different you know, that's what that's called but down the line then is completely different, down the line is, one trap is right in the middle of you How many yards is it away? Sixteen Sixteen yards, and you have five traps at about five steps away from you and you fire fire at number one and you fire fire at number two, all going from the same trap in front of you that's the down the line one Yes And it's spring and teal as you stand there and the two clays go up together The direction, the direction of the bird is fundamentally away from you So do you find, Sean, that you are stronger at certain stands than at other stands? Yes, most definitely So you just have to listen to where you feel you're stronger My most strength is spring and teal, so that's when one clay goes, one or two clays go side by side straight up into the air, and they're right in front of you, going maybe about 16 miles an hour, maybe and then the ones I kind of struggle on are the droppers, so they might come from either the left or the right and they just drop straight down And you found out the problem, didn't you? Yeah, and thanks to Shane I figured out the problem It's because my gun that I have was given to me by my grandad and he was kind of champion in the down the line and the reason why I struggle on the bottom ones is because the gun is slightly angled up so it gives me a little heads up for the spring and teal or the down the line but the ones that are dropping, I have less of a chance of hitting them But something that says you end up firing above them It's to do with the set up of the barrels against the angle of the timber part of the gun, the stock and your stock was too high, therefore you were shooting higher than you knew Once we had that sorted out and had you firing with the gun constantly exactly in line with where you were looking then it didn't matter whether your target was doing a rainbow effect or whether it was turned away or whether it was dropping or climbing or coming over you the gun was firing through So it's important, especially inside prison shooting, that the gun is set up for the person using it You spoke to me last night as well Sean about the actual bullets and the ball bearings effect Can you just tell the listeners about that John showed me his collection of cartridges, that was just amazing We actually spoke about the bullets, so can you just explain what happens on impact I can, so in your cartridge there is your lead balls or your ball bearings and you have a little case to hold them and you have your gun powder and your firing pin So once in your gun you have the trigger and once you pull the trigger it flicks the firing pin and hits the firing pin in the cartridge it's like a little explosion, a little bomb and it spreads out the cartridge and the ball bearings, they actually spin in the barrel and once they release it spreads so the smaller the ball bearings are, the more of them are in the cartridge and the bigger they'll spread but the bigger and heavier they are, the further they'll go and the less they'll spread Are there very strict rules in the competitions about the size of the ball bearings everyone I presume has the exact same Is there flexibility there? There's a small bit of flexibility Have you ever seen a situation where someone has been disqualified because they used cartridges that are, you know I haven't myself, no I've only ever seen problems with the cartridge actually jamming in the gun and that's obviously nothing to do with rules and regulations but God knows it's to do with safety and my friends here are aware of the necessity for safety within our sport and the major problem nowadays is trying to get people to shut down their barrels to make sure every time they go to load or reload that gun every time they shut the barrel to make sure there's no obstruction the actual rate of shot is determined by yourself and the rate of shot is important because that will give you a density of pattern at a given distance you can alter the size of that pattern at that given distance by restricting the end of your barrel, the aperture or choke as we call it so you can vary that as well there are no rules to dictate what the choke should be you can choose your own Can I just ask, thank you Chancellor you know when you were at the county trials which effectively were also county championships which led to you making the Galway team and we'll talk a bit more about that in a minute did young lads like yourself, competing, have coaches with them like Shane? some of them did and some of them didn't I'm going to say most of them didn't just kind of the father, same with me just kind of giving them a heads up it's probably their first time as well and I dream for them as well and how is your dad when you're in the full throes of competition? is he cool, calm and collected? it can depend, if I'm doing well he's nice and calm he's good to be before me, but if I'm not you're not me alarm clock it can be quite stressful what Mark's saying though that for the person shooting to have his father or his girlfriend or his mother or whatever standing immediately behind him is an advantage because the person who isn't shooting and yet in line with the person who is can see where the shot pattern is going so if, God forbid, you should miss your target then obviously the father, like John here is going to know exactly where that miss was and pass that information on to his son and 95% of the team, I always tell them it's Mark, you are what? way, way under we're behind it Sean, how did you come to become acquainted with Shane? I think it's a real feather in your cap that you have a man of his vast experience and knowledge in your backroom team, shall we say so how did that come about? It was my cousin's 18th birthday, I think 18th, and for, dad is his godfather so for Christmas, for a birthday present he got him a lesson with Shane down in Banner Hinch and he brought myself and my sister as well so after the lesson was done Shane said he'll give me a little lesson while I'm here and the reason why I was not great at the start is because mostly I was afraid of the recoil and he gave me a small light gun and a light cartridge and I used to hold it kind of blink after I took the shot and so I did, and I missed terribly and then he told me, and he showed me that I could hold it with my hands just my hands and fire it and I did, and once he kind of calmed me down I took my shot and I hit it, hit the clay you might tell the listener, recoil what do you mean by recoil? because they might not all be acquainted with it the recoil is the kick that hits you in your shoulder so Isaac Newton, his third law for every action there's an equal and opposite reaction if you have force going in one direction you have equal and opposite force coming back and that applies to a gun you force the shot out of the gun you have equal force coming back to your shoulder but sadly, and I really mean this sadly, all too often I hear people with the best intention telling each other pull the gun tight into your shoulder the clay was touching in order to protect yourself against recoil but sadly, if you do that then you have potential muscles in your shoulder and consequently, when you pull the gun tight against the shoulder there is no ability to move so when all of that energy arrives at your shoulder the only thing that happens is the little blood vessels in your shoulder muscles burst and you end up with a bruise I was ten when I started shooting and in the first two weeks my shoulder, having read a chapter in this book that said pull the gun in tight my shoulder was the same colour as the plums my father was growing in the moulding garden at home so I realised that not everything in that book was meant to be believed Well speaking of books Shane I'm now going to give your book a plug and it's called The Complete Shot by Shane Biscott and congratulations on publishing the book Shane and Shane's mobile number is as follows if anyone out there wishes to take up the sport of shooting and they couldn't go to a better man maybe John McDermott might give you a lesson as well 0862795118 Shane just very briefly what's the essence of your book? before we get back to Sean again how to succeed with a shotgun nothing else the mental aspect of shooting which is 85% of it the other 15 is the physical everything is dealt with choice of calibre choice of ammunition dealing with maintenance dealing with for instance an unfortunate thing that happens within our sport dyslexia everybody has heard about dyslexia and that affects people who are shooters now I came across a very dear boy my partner who turned out to be dyslexic and I found a solution for him and it's such a simple solution none of these very expensive spectacles that cost a fortune it was a simple, simple solution for him to be able to shoot even though he was a dyslexic and suddenly we found that not only did it work for his shooting but it worked for his schooling so when he was reading school books he didn't suffer the same problems that other dyslexics do that's amazing guys I have 5 minutes left Linda's telling me here John Galindo O'Malley super technician and thank you Linda for all your assistance Sean let's tell the listeners how you made this county thing a tremendous achievement first of all you might name off some of the clubs down in the southeastern part of Galway which is a mecca for shooting yeah there's I know there's I'm in part of Mealick Aircourt and we have relations in Woodford as well they're really the two main ones in Galway most of them are made up of the Galway team and down around St Thomas' Peter's Well and Kilcreast and all the areas around it and then so all the events take place at Esker yes and Esker is the national it's the Crow Park of shooting is it? yeah that's where we're actually from Esker is in Clantford we're from Clantford which is on the border between Galway and Offaly actually you're talking about social media all the way Esker is in Galway his phone is an Offaly phone number and his post is in Offaly as well so that's why people say we all went to school in Banner but we're not from Offaly Sean Silk is actually from Esker and famous and harder so there were five trials there were so will you just fill the listeners in it was compulsory to attend three and it was three you attended so just explain the structure so what did you have to do or what did you have to achieve to make this county team so it wasn't an average of all the scores you got it was just the best what you did out of the five trials but the course changed every five trials so I only attended to three of them and on the third one which is one that kind of mostly counted I actually made the Galway team I got the highest second highest score out of my age group and there were 40 competing in that yes and so four of you made the four of you made the county team yes only four of us you won the annual competition in honour of your grandfather isn't that right I did yeah and you hit 46 out of 50 in that no I hit 60 out of 64 sorry 60 out of 64 which is quite incredible now you that was amazing and how many people were in there was adults and everything in that competition yeah there was no age group in that sadly I was the youngest there it was the year I got my provisional licence and that's at 16 at 14 at 14 I got my provisional at 14 now just quickly tell the listeners what the name of the governing body is was it like LGFA GA but in shooting what's it called GGHA is the Galway one but the main thing for all the counties is the NARGC yes the NARGC now you didn't scale those heights in the trials and you might tell the listeners why I presume pressure well one pressure yeah but it was a different course so for my granddad's shoot he was the best at down the line so we do a down the line course oh just one of the elements just one yeah I gotcha but this one is testing your versatility now yeah you have to there's various challenges there's many yeah and you can't predict what's going to come but out of the 40 got you the second highest so you had to make top 4 to make it and you truly did I did yeah and you then went to the All-Irelands but they were also held in Esker as well they were yeah how many participated in the All-Irelands there was over 750 guns all together now that's across under 16 under 21 and adult isn't that the case and veteran and vet vet and super yeah okay and two days how many were on the team four on the team four of us were on the team yeah did you do yourself justice on the day as a team were you happy with the level that you hit in the All-Irelands which were held in July isn't that right yeah 20th of July just reflections on the All-Irelands I mean was it were you happy enough I was I was very nervous going into it alright just a lot of pressure first time never would have thought I'd made it to be honest but yeah I feel like we did we did well as a team okay you now there is no under 18 no so you now for the next four years will be endeavouring to make the gold of the under 21 team is that fair to say yeah well the very best luck with that Sean in the future you have great men here behind you and you have you a sense of carrying on this great tradition Sean I do my one dream is to make the Olympics aiming for 2032 but if I can't get it that year I'll go for 36 yeah well I've no doubt you'll give it your best shot and it won't be and you're in this process from such an incredible young age that I think that gives you every chance so Sean the very very best luck with that John final word and then Shane final word it's been a privilege it's been great having you in really enjoyed it John I just love it I'm just I'm behind him 100% you know and I'm I just hope he enjoys it as much as I did and experience and remember it is a sport we love it thank you and it's important that you should know that if you ever want my advice and God knows I've advised enough people at the top end of this sport please know that you can phone me anytime you want you phone me I'll come over or you come to me tell me what your problem is tell me what your problem is and I'll I'll tell me what your problem is and I will help you thanks everyone you were listening to Entry Time John McDermott his son Sean McDermott and Shane Biscott it was a pleasure having you here lads and we'll talk to you next month this program was kindly sponsored by Kylemore Abbey and Gardens 095 52 001 www.kylemoreabbey.com