Our latest video episode is of an 84mm Anti-tank shoot, again from Pat Holohan’s collection and also probably from around 1987. The episode opens with some excellent scenes from the firing point showing impacts on the target and a splendid air burst of an anti-personnel round at 0:58.

We then settle in for a period of standing around doing nothing, and this takes up about 75% of the total time of the video. Par for the course on an FCA field day it seems! 3:10 minutes in and we see someone breaking the cleaning the rod in the barrel. Much investigative work has gone into trying to ascertain the perpetrator, but to no avail. The team at “All things 21^st” are pretty sure it is not “The Colonel” as he would have just looked towards the camera and laughed.

At 2:45 we see a group including Mick O’Toole, Deccy Phelan, Eamon Timlin, Paddy Whelan and most importantly Des Fitzgerald and Ciaran Giles. Giles can be seen to be actually almost on the ground as he tries to cope with effects of the hangover from hell. Des Fitzgerald and Ciaran, had been on the batter the night before, and thinking they had no duties the following day, had well and truly pushed the boat out. A closer inspection of the scene will show that Des has a Gustaf and is on security duty. We can only surmise that whoever decided to give him a gun and 84 rounds of ammunition had gone to bed early and not witnessed the copious amounts of alcohol consumed! At 3:34 we can almost smell their breath when Gilesy tries to wave away the camera and Des gives the “scowl of death”, I do note that the Gustaf is gone by this stage.