Hunting Recommendations for Ireland?

[Frog Morton]

Hi everyone,

Does anyone have recommendations for hunting in Ireland? My brother and I will be there for a week in November and would love to take advantage of any good hunting opportunities. We’d be particularly interested in trying fox hunting, but I understand it’s a good time for deer and birds as well. Any advice or information would be much appreciated!

Thanks!

 

[BourbonTrail]

@Sika98k might have some good recommendations

 

[UKHunter]

If you're going to Ireland then you need to go after Sika. John "Sika" Fenton, Jim Nolan in Glacial Valley Hunting and Norman Mulvaney are all recommended from reports I see. Do your research - lots of chancers out there.

 

[Sika98k]

Hi everyone,

Does anyone have recommendations for hunting in Ireland? My brother and I will be there for a week in November and would love to take advantage of any good hunting opportunities. We’d be particularly interested in trying fox hunting, but I understand it’s a good time for deer and birds as well. Any advice or information would be much appreciated!

Thanks!

The licensing process is pretty slow.
First you need a firearms certificate for the firearm you are going to use.
the outfitter would have to complete the application filling in all the relevant land details.
Secondly you require a deer hunting licence. This is issued by the NPWS or the National Parks and Wildlife Service.
Driven pheasant there isn’t too much of a palaver. You simply require a firearms certificate for your shotgun. Again the outfitter must arrange this. You may be a little late in planning a shooting trip here.

 

[mdwest]

We'll be hunting sika and potentially fallow with these guys in a little more than 2 weeks..

http://www.celticfieldsports.com/

Will be able to report more once I get back (will write a full hunt report).. but so far they have been very responsive and attentive..

They appear to be a family based operation (husband, wife, and daughter have all at different times responded to emails, phone calls, etc as we have planned and booked the hunt).. They live in TX much of the year, but seem to spend most of the hunting season living and working in Ireland..

They've had a booth at DSC for several years and came with strong recommendations from a couple of people in the DSC offices..

@Sika98k is spot on about the paperwork.. there's a bit of paperwork to complete.. our outfitter got us processed pretty quickly (a couple of weeks?) once everything got submitted though and made things painless for us..

If you're planning on trying to hunt in November, I'd definitely make some decisions very fast and start trying to get everything together.. I don't think it would be impossible to pull off.. but it might be a challenge.. Unless they have had a cancellation, I believe our outfitter is completely booked in November as well.. I know they got backed up a bit during all of the COVID mess and now have people that wanted to hunt in 2020, 2021, and 2022 all converging on them in one season...

 

[Sika98k]

We'll be hunting sika and potentially fallow with these guys in a little more than 2 weeks..

http://www.celticfieldsports.com/

Will be able to report more once I get back (will write a full hunt report).. but so far they have been very responsive and attentive..

They appear to be a family based operation (husband, wife, and daughter have all at different times responded to emails, phone calls, etc as we have planned and booked the hunt)..

They've had a booth at DSC for several years and came with strong recommendations from a couple of people in the DSC offices..

Don’t forget we are having a few pints in Dublin !

 

[mdwest]

Already asked the outfitter to try to get me back the last night of our hunt rather than the next morning... just so we can find something wet and alcoholic to consume!

 

[WAB]

I love Dublin, but I have never managed to keep it to a few pints there!

 

[Frog Morton]

Thanks for the responses, everyone, and for all the information! This trip kind of came together last minute (just got tickets booked over the weekend actually!). We've visited Ireland before, and always wanted to take advantage of the hunting opportunities there, but never actually looked at the specifics and requirements. Is the firearms paperwork required if you're using a guide's rifle/shotgun, or only if you're bringing your own firearms?

 

[BRICKBURN]

This might answer your question.
https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2000/act/20/section/2/enacted/en/html

https://www.garda.ie/en/about-us/on...censing/non-resident-form-amended-16-1-13.pdf

 

[Frog Morton]

This might answer your question.
https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2000/act/20/section/2/enacted/en/html

https://www.garda.ie/en/about-us/on...censing/non-resident-form-amended-16-1-13.pdf

Thanks very much, @BRICKBURN!

 

[UKHunter]

Thanks for the responses, everyone, and for all the information! This trip kind of came together last minute (just got tickets booked over the weekend actually!). We've visited Ireland before, and always wanted to take advantage of the hunting opportunities there, but never actually looked at the specifics and requirements. Is the firearms paperwork required if you're using a guide's rifle/shotgun, or only if you're bringing your own firearms?

If you dont sort something, its a short flight to the UK and lots of deer stalking available and no paper work needed.

 

[Sika98k]

Thanks for the responses, everyone, and for all the information! This trip kind of came together last minute (just got tickets booked over the weekend actually!). We've visited Ireland before, and always wanted to take advantage of the hunting opportunities there, but never actually looked at the specifics and requirements. Is the firearms paperwork required if you're using a guide's rifle/shotgun, or only if you're bringing your own firearms?

Regardless of who owns the firearm you must have a non resident firearms licence pertinent to the firearm you are using, be that a shotgun or rifle.

 

[Frog Morton]

If you dont sort something, its a short flight to the UK and lots of deer stalking available and no paper work needed.

That’s good to know! We would definitely like to do some hunting in the UK also.

 

[Frog Morton]

Regardless of who owns the firearm you must have a non resident firearms licence pertinent to the firearm you are using, be that a shotgun or rifle.

Thanks for the clarification on that!

 

[Stalker91]

Speak with Norman Mulvanny at Irish Safaris he is a good friend and he will sort you out for sika, goats,fishing and I’m sure he will know someone for a bit of woodcock shooting. If you want his contact pm me

 

[Bob Nelson 35Whelen]

Don’t forget we are having a few pints in Dublin !

@Sika98k
Dublin is such a beautiful and historical city. Temple Bar is a great place for a bit of entertainment and a goodly dose of mothers milk (Guinness). Ireland is such a beautiful place. Our family stayed with friend in Newbridge just out of Dublin when we were there. In our travels I saw some absolutely magnificent fallow stags and regretted not having a rifle, but the prison sentence wouldn't have been worth it.
I would go back to Ireland in a heartbeat. My wife's ancestors is Irish and English with some of her family coming from Crookshank just out of Dublin.
Bob

 

[Bob Nelson 35Whelen]

I love Dublin, but I have never managed to keep it to a few pints there!

@WAB
Define a few. To me a few is anything up to a dozen pints of Guinness. At Temple Bar I managed to just have a couple of pints (read 6 or 7) because my wife dint want to walk back to our digs with a drunk singing bawdy Irish songs. So I had to be a good boy.
The only problem with Temple Bar is a pint is dearer their than across the bridge but the night was worth it.
Bob

 

[WAB]

You can’t go wrong with any pub in the Temple Bar area. I have a soft spot for temple bar. They sang ‘Farewell to Nova Scotia’ for my wife. It was awesome.

 

[Sika98k]

Yes, we have some good fallow bucks here probably the most widely spread deer in the country. Personally I prefer the sika. Their chilling whistle during the rut is pretty awesome.
we Do Not have exotic sheep sometimes referred to as “stone sheep” by outfitters. Probably bought at the local mart and dropped up on the hill the week before.