Archery in the Barony of Eplaheimr
Archery is an excellent modern pastime as well as once having been a crucial part of medieval life, for the hunt or in battle. In Eplaheimr we actively seek to improve our archery skills with regular practice and through research into archery equipment and techniques from western Europe, the Middle East, China and Japan.
In the SCA, archery is practiced using a bare bow, lacking the targeting, fine tuning, and balancing equipment used in modern day archery. Arrows are made of wood, with feather fletchings, steel points, and various forms of nock. While archers are encouraged to shoot using equipment close to the forms used in the medieval period, modern recurve bows are allowed, provided the bow is bare. Compound bows, plastic fletchings, and arrow shafts made from aluminium or carbon fibre are not currently allowed in practice or in competition.
Many of our weekend events include archery competitions, consisting of scoring on targets at set distances. We also conduct shoots with different target types, shooting rules, obstacles, and varying distances.
While we do not currently have a regular practice, events held in the Scout Den in Clara, Co. Offaly will often have an Archery element to them. If you are particularly interested in Archery, please get in touch and we can discuss how and when we can try to make it happen for you!
If you are part of a modern Archery club, they are usually fine with you shooting Medieval-style on their ranges to practice.
Under 16s must be accompanied by a parent or guardian.
What to bring
For a practice, just yourself. Wear a top with sleeves that are not baggy, as this may impede the bow string. We provide loaner bows, arrows and other necessary equipment for practices. We recommend coming along to practices before committing to buying equipment. A small deposit is payable to cover possible arrow breakages.
Weekly practice starts with equipment inspection followed by practice shoots and will normally feature a scoring round. Scores from this round will be submitted to the kingdom archery database for ranking and periodic competition purposes.
Get in touch to find out when and where a practice is being held!