Foreigners who come here to shoot during the season are sometimes given a bad name - for shooting too much, not always in line with the regulations. But, on return they always seem to write gratefully of their experiences and of their hosts and their guillies, as one writer calls their guides. In a recent number of the magazine La Chasse he has found "le Roscommon" to be a sporting area of great variety. In Kerry, he writes, you go for woodcock, in Connemara for duck, and along the south coast for woodpigeon. But in Roscommon you have great choice.
Not far from Boyle, he tells us, you may put up, in the course of one day, woodcock, snipe, duck, hares, pheasants (wild) and foxes. He does point out that you don't shoot the hen pheasants. But foxes! "Les bogs (fields of turf)," which you negotiate, more or less with ease in thigh-length waders, are rich in wild, flighty snipe. Very wet around these watery bogs, he tells us, but the water draws in the ducks towards evening. And now and then there's a little wood with the much coveted pheasant and perhaps woodcock. And, to their surprise a hare splashes past. That's probably the one picture with the article. Held by the heels: shot. In fact, even if you haven't the slightest interest in such activities, the man who wrote the article and took the pictures did a great job for Bord Failte. One picture alone, of a man with a gun on his shoulder, a background of water and marshy growth, behind him the head of his dog, is a gem.
There are great words of praise for the same guillies. "Ireland remains Ireland from the south-west to the north-west; les guillies love to laugh and make jokes." And the pubs of Boyle are as welcoming as around Cork and Dublin, and are particularly lively on Saturday evening (celtic music and exuberant ambiance). But, he writes, the great, pleasant surprise of this trip was to discover a diversity of environment and such a choice of small game. To be recommended.
His name is Leon Mazzella. As noted, he took the excellent pictures, too. And you get to see some of their bag, which seemed to please them. Y