IRISH OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP 2026
The 114th Irish Open Target Rifle Championship results
David Calvert (TR),
Noel McCarthy (F Open),
Glenn McGarrigle (F/TR),
Ronnie Cromie (Classic)
Andy Scott (Classic Transitional Optical)
The URA extends its congratuations to all the winners.
The 2026 Results are now available to download here
The 2025 Irish Open Target Rifle Championship was held at Ballykinler on the weekend of 7 th– 8 th June 2025.
Despite a forecast for a very wet weekend, Saturday started off reasonably
dry with fairly benign winds. The competition began with the Ballykinler tankard, a
competition consisting of 2 sighters and 15 scoring shots at 300 yards. This saw wins for Michael Cooper in Target Rifle, beating Nick Healy by just two v Bulls, Mukesh Lalloo in FOpen, Ray Hennessy in F TR, Ronnie Cromie in Classic, Karl Teggarty in Classic optical and Andy Scott in Classic Transitional Optical. Next was a Kings 1, consisting of two sighters and 7 scoring shots at 300, 500 and 600 yards. By now the weather had taken a turn for the worse, with showers of rain and varying winds. However thankfully the showers were brief and no one got really wet. By the end of Saturday, the positions in the championship were as follows. In Target Rifle Nick Healy and Michael Cooper were on equal scores,neither having dropped a point, but Nick ahead on countback. In F Open Mukesh Lalloo came out on top and F TR saw William Latimer in first place. In Classic Ronnie Cromie let the field and Classic optical saw Karl Teggarty in first place. Classic Transitional Optical
saw Colin Deery pull ahead of Andy Scott.
Sunday started off on a brighter note, but the winds were significantly stronger and more variable than on Saturday. The competition on Sunday was a Kings 2, consisting of two sighters and 10 scoring shots at 300, 500 and 600 yards. By the end of the Kings 2, Nick Healy and Michael Cooper were on equal scores of 253, having dropped just two points over the whole weekend, with Nick just ahead by 8 v bulls. F Open saw Mukesh Lalloo on 250.22v ahead of Liz Charleton with 249.24v. Ray Hennesssy topped F TR on 244.18v with young Adam Lalloo in second on 242.18v. Ronnie Cromie was in first place in Classic ahead of Paul Dunlop and Classic Transitional Optical was led by Colin Deery. On then to the final which was open to a selected number of competitors from each class. The final took place at 600 yards with the shoot consisting of 2 sighters and 15 scoring shots. The competition went right up to the wire with Nick Healy and Michael Cooper both dropping one point each, but Nick held on to his lead beating Michael by 5 v bulls to be crowned Irish
Open Target Rifle Champion for 2025.
F Open saw Mukesh Lalloo extend his lead to win the class. In F TR both Ray Hennesy and Adam Lalloo finished with a score of 71.5v, but as Ray had a two point advantage before the final he won F TR. In Classic Ronnie Cromie finished the final with a 58.1v against Paul Dunlop’s 56.1v and overall won his class. The Classic Transitional Optical class was won by Colin Deery. A special mention goes to Rebecca Laird and Mukesh Lalloo of the URA, who were the only competitors to score 75 in the final. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all those who helped in any way to make the Irish Open such a success and in particular to Tom Robb who did a fantastic job recording the scores and publishing the results and Frank Charleton who gave up a weekend’s shooting to do range officer for the two days of competition.