Goodbye To A Good Friend

Saturday evening I had a telephone call from a friend of mine. It was one of those calls that as you answer something deep inside you instinctively tells you that something is wrong. My instincts were proved correct and my worst fears were confirmed when the caller asked me if I was sitting down.

The caller was Flan Larkin the brother of one of my closest friends, Bernie Larkin, and the news he was about to impart certainly required that I be so. Mercifully, he broke the news quickly. His brother and my good friend, Bernie, had passed away suddenly while attending the British Open Clay Pigeon Shooting Championship at Bishops Mountain Shooting Centre that morning.

I had known Bernie since I came to Nenagh over 40 years ago. At that time we were both truck drivers hauling livestock. My first encounter with him was not a pleasant one and very nearly ended a friendship before it had time to begin. It involved a slight difference of opinion as to which of us was next in line to pull into the loading gate at Nenagh cattle mart to get on our load.

Tempers flared and a strong exchange of words ensued. Who was right and who was wrong on that particular evening is lost in the mists of time. All I know is that after I had decided that discretion is the better part of valour and it was advisable not to mess with this guy – a wise decision that I would see many others make over the ensuing years - Bernie, naturally had his way. However, when we had our trucks loaded and tempers had subsided, we approached each other. A mumbled apology to each other and a hand shake was to be the beginning of a friendship that would endure over 40 years.

Clay pigeon shooting was Bernie’s chosen sport and although I previously had had a brief encounter with the sport, it was he who reintroduced me to it in 1979. On a Sunday late in that year I accompanied him to Ballinderry to see him compete in what was then known as a flapper shoot (These are unregistered shoots run by gun clubs mainly to raise funds for game restocking purposes.) From that day onwards as the shooting addiction took hold of me, we were travelling and shooting companions at home and abroad for many years.

Bernie (centre back row) and friends at a shooting competition in Wales sometime in the 1980's

Although Bernie was later to excel at the sport on the International scene where he represented Ireland several times, he always had a love for those unregistered shoots where he would meet the grass root shooters and the first-time entrants to the sport.

It is fair to say that the experienced and International shooters were not always very welcome at those events because their presence gave very little chance to the inexperienced competitors to win a prize. What set Bernie apart from the others though and always made him a welcome figure was that at the end of the day he would return the prizes he had won to be shared amongst the less experienced participants. It was through his generosity and sportsmanship that many a young beginner went home proudly displaying a prize.

A writer on the Irish Clay Pigeon Shooting web site in a tribute to Bernie described how he often saw him demonstrate his unique ability to shoot clay pigeons from the hip. Bernie shot from the hip ok in more ways than one. He never went behind the bushes to say anything like many others on the shooting scene. Anything he had to say was said to your face – you liked it or you didn’t. In later years, when I became involved at the administration level of the association, Bernie was never slow to offer his criticism, or indeed, his praise, if he thought you deserved it.

The last time I saw Bernie was about three months ago when he called to my house in Nenagh. We had tea and talked about trucks, our families and of course shooting. We sorted out many of the problems that beset the country and the world and after a couple of hours he departed leaving me all the more enriched from his visit and glad to have him as a friend.

The Golden Bear – as he was always referred to by one sports commentator – will be sadly missed. The shooting scene will be all the poorer by his absence.

I would like to extend my sincerest sympathy to his wife, Carmel, and family. Go ndéana trócaire ar a anam.

Bernie Larkin RIP