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.
The College of Kingeslake, based in Athlone IT, is a college (smaller group) within the Barony of Eplaheimr and they hold a regular practice there during term time on Friday afternoons. You do not have to be in the college to join us, and this is the best way to get regular archery practice in Eplaheimr. If you can’t make these don’t worry, we run Saturday archery days at reasonably regular intervals where you can come and shoot for the day and usually get your lunch on site too. These are often held in Clara, Co. Offaly.
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 commiting 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.
Weekly Practice (term time) in Athlone IT on Friday afternoons from 14:30 – 16:30