This was a hard days work on carnagh range,Mullingar.

Well as you see can we were all working very hard the day we went to the firing range in carnagh, Co. Cork!!
Seriously a lot of hard preparation must be done before you are allowed set foot on the firing range let alone fire a weapon!
Firstly you must do intense training on the weapon you will be firing, in this case I was firing the GPMG (general purpose machine gun). You must learn the theory and history of the gun, be able to perform safety checks, be able to go through the motions of firing the gun safely and altering the gun if something should happen to it. At the end of this all you must complete your T.O.E.T'S(tests of elementary training).
If you do not succeed in passing these then you will not be allowed set foot on the firing range.
Thankfully I passed all my tests without any problems.
I must admit it was quite scary and daunting firing live rounds for the first time after doing so much preparation for that moment. Despite my nerves I fired the best shot of the day and obtained a total of 378 points of a possible 400.I won an award for this,
I couldn't help feeling quite proud of the fact that at the tender age of 17 I had fired two army weapons and had a vast knowledge of them both!!