[help/info please] Starting/Rifle Living in Limerick

bullets

Hi all,

just registered today after seeing a board relating to shooting!

Looking for a bit of info and want to know if there are poeple here
on the board that are from Limerick.

Am living in Limerick and want at some time in the future to join
a rifle club and take up target or sillioutte shooting.
Spent 6-7 years in the FCA/RDF so am familiar with 7.62, .303, 9mm
(still have my rifle marksmans trophy proudly on my desk in work!!)
Im gone from the FCA now a good fw years but there has not
been a day gone by where I have not missed being out on the range.


I have no interest in shotguns etc only in rifles
used to iron sites but would love to learn to use scoped firearms.

It looks like Fermoy rifle club may be the club that is nearest to me,
I have heard people tell me that there is a rifle club in Limerick but
I have never heard of it. All I can think of was an old Army Range that
was closed down years ago and also the indoor .22 and air rifle range used
by the Army in Sarsfield barracks (not open to public as far as I Know)

Problem with Fermoy rifle club is getting there.
I have a morgage so cannot afford to buy a car so that leaves public transport.
It would be a bit of a nightmare getting to the range on a Sunday.
I emailed one of the memberrs who said they would get back to me
to see if I could arrange a visit but I never heard back from them.

I would have to try get an early bus to Cork, then another bus to Fermoy
and then hope to get a taxi to the range and back!!!!!!

Interestingly enough, what surprised me was The guy in the fishing/gun shop near me said there would be no legal issues getting on public transport with a rifle as long as its in its case. (thatcomment really surprised me)

if anyone has any info I would be most grateful,
~B

Irishglockfan

Hi Bullets
I am in Limerick as well.
You are right ,we do have to travel abit to find a club.Didnt know there was in Fermoy,you live and learn.Your choices are; Fermoy,Midland rifle range in Blueball[up beyond Birr] and Kerry rifles.I dont really go to clubs,because I have my own land to shoot on.But I usually go ,and will proably join Midland.It is one thing the mid west and Limerick in paticular does need a shooting range and clay range.I would have the ideal location for it 2.5 miles outside limerick,inc an indoor range for rifle and pistol shooting.
However the following annoying things prevent me from doing so;
Insurance,planning permission,finance,local supers attitude to the project,and Limericks standing in the national media[stab city and all that].

You are right about the Sarsfield range ,it is gone.it was open on a limited basis to the public for air rifle shooting,until so goes the local story, some army D%^&k head used his 22 on the air rifle range and made ****e of it.Great cover up and blame the civvies.

Sympathise with you about getting to fermoy.Great public transport system here.
You can carry the gun indeed in public solong as it is in a secured case with the ammo seperate from it and you have your lic with you.
PM me if I can help you further
Regds
IrishGlock

Sparks

One of the things we'd love to see, actually, is a range in Limerick, especially as you've got the National Center for Training and Coaching in UL. But we just don't have people on the ground there to set one up

bullets

cheers for the reply,

I ran into the same issues when I suggested trying to create an air-rifle club
and even a paintball club through my works sports and social club.
They have enough land locally to make an indoor air-rifle range but
nobody wanted to touch off the idea.
Even one of the guys that used to be in the FCA with me
I think went on a range safety officer course.

The company I work for have a bit of land around Mungret college area
that is used for the social club. Whats frustrating is that in the
field/land next to it I have seen poeple shoot clays in the past.

I must check out midlands to see if it is easier to get to. I wont be
really pushing to visist a range till after christmans cos then i
will have to face the decision to either invest my cash in a
new PC or put it towards getting a membership of a club.

~B

Haket

Hi, I'm another Limerick resident and have taken up target shooting recently after years of owning a 22. I joined the Fermoy rifle club recently and its class. In fact we may even work for the same empoyer judging by your Mungret reference. PM me and we can chat offline.

bullets

Sorry if this has been asked countless times before but out of interest
what exactly would you need to get something set up? And who
would you aproach to do so?

even if something indoor was set up and enough interest was generated
then there may be grounds to build an outdoor .22 range.

Assumming that permission/permits were not an issue
I presume there would be a huge insurance fee, and there
would be a need to instructors/saftey officers.
somebody to invest money,
a way of stopping psycho's from joining up and going crazy.


~B

Irishglockfan

Had a look at the Fermoy,Midlands club distance.They are about the same distance + / - four miles.
It would be proably easier to set up an outside range from the ones i have seen here.
As i said I have the land and the inernal structure to do so.however I came across the following problems;
INSURANCE you need public liability,and every other insurance you can think of.we are already paying over5k a year just for the land insurance.so it would more than likely be double this for allowing people on it for a commerical gain.
NOISE It is going to require noise testing from the HSA,which can end it there and then if it goes over a certain limit.which will proably also have certain no shooting times on it on paticular days.
PLANNING PERMISSION Change of use from agricultural to commerical and the revelant objections ,building of structures etc.
SAFTEY
Employing a range officer who will have to be qualified to what level and by whom? US NRA instructor level or what is the European level?[including in this first aid.]Up to asking the fairer sex if they are pregnant[Lead fumes,spall etc from shot bullets can be dangerous to pregnant women.Dont dismiss it!!! It is SOP inthe US and Europe to get them to sign a waiver of any damage to their pregnancy whilst they shoot during their pregnancy.Remember we are the second most litagaitous country next to the USA.]
SECURITY
A whole chapter in itself.

Checking for nutters!!!
Hmmm Well unless you are going to employ a head shrinker to vet everyone who joins on a regular basis with their willing participation and allowing his report to go to the comittie and be public.This one has baffled everyone sofar!
Above all
as a busisness venture Will it self sustain and make money?The one thing bank managers and financial backers want to see and hear.It has to be a biz first and a club second.

Who could we turn to for money?
National lottery? dept of sport?[if such is still there,and want to finance a "minority"sport].Private backing,public charity.

Could it be done ? yes,I belive so,difficult? yup,hard work?indeed.

Sparks

Irishglockfan wrote:

Checking for nutters!!!
Hmmm Well unless you are going to employ a head shrinker to vet everyone who joins on a regular basis with their willing participation and allowing his report to go to the comittie and be public.This one has baffled everyone sofar!

And scarily, the Barr Tribunal is now looking at precisely that - and recommending that everyone who applies for a new licence, or renews an existing one, should have to be certified as mentally fit. Given that it takes an extended period of observation by trained professionals to get a proper psychiatic evaluation done, that's hopefully going to be dismissed as the unworkably bad idea it is.

But basicly, common sense (I know, I know, common sense isn't...) is the usual guideline. If someone acts the idiot with firearms, you discipline them. I mean, if college clubs run by teenagers can do that for over fifty years in total without any accidents, I think a club run by grown adults should be capable of it, no?

Who could we turn to for money?
National lottery? dept of sport?[if such is still there,and want to finance a "minority"sport].Private backing,public charity.

Look up the Sports Capital Grant. It's run by the Department of Arts, Sports and Tourism. It will fund up to 70% of the costs for any piece of equipment on the range from the buildings themselves to club rifles/mats/scopes/jackets/gloves/etc. It won't fund personal gear; it won't pay for the land; but it will cover damn near everything else bar consumables. And there's serious money in that kitty - on the order of tens of millions of euros.

There are other schemes you could apply under: the Tourism Product Development Scheme, the County Enterprise Boards (specifically the Operational Programme for Local, Urban and Rural Development Sub-Programme 1: Local Enterprise. Try saying that with your mouth full!), you could try the International Fund for Ireland or the Ireland Funds or the Programme for Peace and Reconciliation if you're inviting target shooters from the North to shoot down South, as is often done since ISSF target shooting is a 32-county affair in this country. There's the EU LEADER programme, the Operational Programme for Tourism, the Western Investment Fund (for Donegal, Leitrim, Sligo, Roscommon, Mayo, Galway and Clare), the Youth and Sport Grant Scheme (though that's a low-level grant from the VEC on the order of a few hundred euro at best, but every little counts), and you could even get a 50% grant for your website from empower.ie.

So there are funding grant schemes out there - it's just that you have to put in the work to the proposals. Small hint on that one - find a researcher in UL or whereever who's interested and get them on board. Half a researcher's job is applying for grants - it's how we get paid, buy our equipment, hire our research students and it's one of the metrics we're judged on when applying for a job...

civdef

Sparks wrote:

And scarily, the Barr Tribunal is now looking at precisely that - and recommending that everyone who applies for a new licence, or renews an existing one, should have to be certified as mentally fit. Given that it takes an extended period of observation by trained professionals to get a proper psychiatic evaluation done, that's hopefully going to be dismissed as the unworkably bad idea it is.

Given the Barr Tribuinal has also heard how a psychiatrist sent a letter to the Gardai stating that in his medical opinion, John Carthy could have his shotgun back safely, I'd love to see the twist of logic they'd use to make out that psychiatric/psychological evaluations are any use at all.

Sparks

What I'd seen in the Irish Times on that one Civ wasn't that the psychiatrist said that McCarthy was compus, but that if he didn't get the shotgun back, he might become severely depressed...
Which would mean that the certificate was re-issued to someone whose psychiatrist had stated was not fully mentally sound!