Creedmoor Cup THE


Initially a 400 yard range, it soon expanded to 600 yards, prompting the NRAI to form a national F Class League, bringing together like-minded shooters from all over Ireland to compete in the modern F Class discipline. The League continued to grow and in 2008, a 1000 yard range was built to facilitate Ireland’s bid to compete in the 2009 F-Class World Championships held that year at Bisley.


To honour the memory of the first generation of competitive Irish riflemen who, by their endeavours, gave rise to the current Palma series of international rifle matches, this match would be named The Creedmoor in honour of the US ranges were the original match was held. The historic Creedmore Range, on Long Island New York, closed exactly 100 years ago.


To host the 2011 Creedmoor Cup events, a new 1200 yard facility has been built, using volunteer labour, all in the space of just two years and christened the NRAI Creedmoor Range, in memory of that historic Irish- American match. It is a testament to the sheer hard work of those volunteers that the range facility was up and running in time - just!


Now, the Creedmoor Match would have been enough of an attraction by itself but, the NRAI wanted more in this, its inaugural year so, two other events were also held. The first being the Irish Open - two days of F Class shooting for individual competitors from any nation. The second, a Europe versus America team match – a bit like a Ryder Cup with rifles rather than golf clubs!


So, would that be enough? – Not likely! The Irish also held their Open National Championships at the same time – making it a whole week of top- flight competition. Invitations were sent out to all interested F-classers to attend the events and the GB F Class League urged members to attend but more on that later.


So it was that in late June, shooters from the USA and all parts of Ireland converged on Tullamore. Travelling anywhere with firearms these days can be rather fraught with bureaucracy, however getting to Ireland proved fairly straightforward, thanks in large part to the assistance given by the NRAI and MNSCI, who have a good team of capable officers there.


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