Irish 3 Day

The Irish 3 Day takes place every other year over the June bank holiday weekend when the Samrock O-Ringen isn’t on. This year we were up in the complex open mountainsides of the Bluestack Mountains in Donegal, just north of Lough Eske. This area is familiar to many, as it was the area used for the Irish Champs last year. Each days orienteering was restricted to small areas of the map with many loops in the courses. This seemed to be mainly done to aid the organisers in using less controls, and make it easier for them to put out and collect afterwards. This didn’t really affect the orienteering that much, as the traffic through the controls wasn’t too bad, with a big start window for the amount of runners involved. The controls were hung quite high though, which lessened the challenge somewhat on this good, complex and runnable terrain. Chasing starts on the last day added to the atmosphere, with the M50 class ending in a dead heat after one of the best sprint finishes I’ve seen in ages.

Congrats to Hazel Thompson (W35) and Faith White (W75) for winning their classes. Dave Weston came second in M45 and Maura Higgins was third (and first Irish home) in the W65 class.

We will be back down on the Sheeps Head peninsula in West Cork for the Shamrock O-Ringen for next years June Bank holiday weekend. Pencil it into your diary now.