This year Ireland hosted the Ward JHI, which was held just north of the border in Co. Fermanagh over the weekend of October 16th and 17th. A full Irish squad, including reserves, travelled up and down by various means to Corralea Activity Centre, near the village of Belcoo, on the Friday night. When our carload arrived at midnight (due to missed trains, etc!) everyone was sleeping soundly.

Saturday morning saw us up bright and early, to add the finishing touches to our preparations. After a quick stop at Gortatole O.E.C. to collect our SI cards, we were finally on the way to Destination Day One- the Burren. Some of you may remember the east side of this venue from the Irish Champs in '94. We were orienteering on the west side of the map, which consisted almost entirely of open moorland and farmland. There was also a tricky area of forest to the east, which we had been warned about well in advance. On the whole it didn't sound too bad! Garret Greene adds ... "As always a solid sheet of rain descended on the start area where the Irish team were left out in the open while the other teams huddled in the tents they had the foresight to bring. The courses themselves were over marshy ground littered with walls and boulders. Judging by my course the planners were aiming for a physically tough course rather than a technical one, not that I didn’t have plenty of problems there as well. But despite the best efforts of the whole team we finished the day in third place trailing England and Scotland. But it wasn’t all that bad , Christian Foley Fisher managed to take the second place prize for the M14 age group and we at least managed to stay ahead of the Welsh team going into day two.

As the first results began to come in, it was clear that the times were going to be very fast. In the end, two of the Irish finished in the top three; Christian Foley-Fisher in M14 was an excellent 2nd and Niamh O'Boyle finished 3rd in W16. Other notable results were Aislinn Austin and Jonathan Lucey, both 4th, in W18 and M18 respectively, and Rory Finlay 5th in M18. Considering that last year we had the grand total of one person in the top 5, it's fair to say that we improved! Ireland were 3rd overall on the individual day, with our two best categories being the W16's and M18's, both 2nd behind England.

The prizegiving, dinner and disco were held in the Bawnacre Leisure Centre in Irvinestown on Saturday night, with all the teams on the floor for most of the night. Of course there were a few absentees for some of the time, but nobody really noticed! Christian and Niamh collected their plate-prizes to the loudest applause of the night; it may only have been louder when it was announced that Ireland had beaten Wales!! We headed home around 11 o'clock to get some rest for the next day.

The overall results were!

TotalIndividualRelay

England301 169 132

Scotland236 128108

Ireland134 92 42

Wales130 70 60

and the full Irish team was:

W18Aislinn Austin M18Jonathan Lucey

Caroline Dennehy Rory Finlay

Laura CotterNiall Bourke

Denise HealyStewart Caithness

Res.D.Burke and A.Barry

W16Niamh O'BoyleM16David Healy

Sharon LuceyBen Fulton

Kelly GibsonMatthew McCloskey

Niamh MorrisseyJason Lynch

Res.June O'NeillRes.Robert Wheeldon

W14Zara StevensonM14Christian Foley-Fisher

Megan CrowchThomas Cotter

Eimear McCarthyGarret Green

Laura CunninghamPaul Geary

Res.E.Foley-Fisher+C.CashinRes.Conor Mailey



On behalf of the team, I would like to thank everyone who has worked with us over the past year, and especially to those who put time into the various squad weekends- Frank Ryan, Justin May, Damien Cashin, Brendan Cryan, Pat Healy, Toni O'Donovan, Mick Kellett, Paul Dunne and everyone else. Thanks to Ray Finlay for excellent planning at the JHI, everyone who travelled up to the JHI with us, and last but not least, to our manager Ted Lucey who has worked so hard for us. This year's JHI is in northwest England over the first weekend in September, so start training everyone!