Birr Castle, home of Lord and Countess Rosse, is the venue
for the 2002 National Country Fair. Within the grounds the Great
Telescope, the Formal Gardens and parkland with thousands of rare
trees and plants are additional attractions for this year’s Fair.
Birr a heritage town and centrally located is easily accessible
from all parts of Ireland. The castle is located within the town
and there are numerous eateries and pubs all within walking distance
of the Fair grounds for evening entertainment.

This year’s Fair offers all the traditional components of a Country
Fair plus lots more to entertain families for example Macnas the
internationally acclaimed theatre group from Galway will be performing
throughout the day, other international acts include ‘Jousting
by Horses Impossible’, and Les Echos des Provinces, the French
horn blowers.

The shooting grounds will feature for the first time John Bidwell,
three times world clay shooting champion. John started his shooting
exhibition 14 years ago and has taken it around the world including
New Zealand and Australia. Using pump action and automatic shotguns,
he gives displays shooting from the hip and behind the back, thus
demonstrating eye to hand contact. It will be John’s first time
to exhibit in Ireland and the shooting fraternity and general
public alike should be well entertained by his skills and showmanship.

Courthlough Shooting Grounds are organising the sporting clay
layout to include; 30 sporting bird, D.T.L 15, Spring & Teal
and Fur & Feather both of which are pool. Margaret met with
Bill Flynn of Courtlough recently to finalise the shooting layout
and Bill considered the natural woodland ideal for sporting clays.
The NARGC will have 3 stands for their shooting clinic. The National
Air Riffle and Pistol Club are organizing the air riffle-shooting
layout with knockdown targets simulating silhouette shooting.

It should be noted that there is on site parking available to
shooting participants to allow direct access to the shooting grounds.
However to allow for the smooth management of traffic flow in
Birr on Sunday and Monday it is highly recommended that shooting
visitors bring with them their gun license to show at Garda checkpoints
in order to gain access in what would be otherwise cordoned off
from public parking. Margaret Edgill is stressing this so that
traffic movement will be more fluid and hence your day more enjoyable.

The 2002 Fair this year has considerably strengthened the Game
Angling programme which will include internationally acclaimed
fly casting experts: Hywell Morgan, Peter Anderson and Andy Murray.
Hywell is the current world record holder for multiple casting
– an amazing sixty-six rods cast simultaneously. He won a silver
medal in the world Fly Fishing Championships in 1994.

Margaret Edgill is delighted to announce that Patrick Cleere &
Sons the Game Angling Specialist based in Dublin’s Temple Bar
have secured House of Hardy casting expert Andy Murray from England.

Brendan Begley well known director of the Game Angling & Casting
School of Ireland and President of The Irish National Casting
Association is managing the angling competitions to include trout
and salmon distance casting, thirteen other events plus ladies
competitions. Prizes will be particularly attractive with over
20 top grade prizes valued at over 5,000 Euro.

The 2002 Fair is featuring for the first time International Labrador
and Springer Trials on Monday 3rd June with teams from England,
Scotland, Wales and Ireland. The National competition will include
open and advanced working tests on Sunday 2nd June. Eddie Kirk
and Kiernan Murphy of the English Spring Spaniel Club of Ireland
and Broadmeadows gundog club care pleased to be associated with
the new Birr Castle venue.

For equestrian enthusiasts, the GAIN hunt chase on Sunday 2nd
June is a qualifier for the All Ireland Inter Hunt Chase, the
final of which is held at the Limerick Show in August 2002. GAIN
has very kindly sponsored this event with a prize fund of 1,500
Euro.

For family members not directly involved in field sports there
is a host of activities that will entertain particularly children
with the introduction this year of X-treme trampoline, the first
of it’s kind in Ireland. Bounce-A-lot will be back with their
bouncing castles and so too are the mini quads. Other features
for this year’s Fair include the National Tug-O-War Championships
on Sunday, in fact there is so much to see and actively participate
in it will be hard to do it all in a single day.