Author Topic: New manifestation of enthusiasm for the game (Read 689 times)

Questor · « **on:** April 27, 2004, 03:35:13 AM »

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Friends of a champion Irish clay pigeon shooter have fulfilled his dying wish by packing his ashes into shotgun cartridges and blasting his remains over firing ranges around the world.

Shooting enthusiast Tony Mullan made the request before he died at Easter aged 63 after a year-long illness.

"Tony said 'I want to go out with a bang and it's up to you guys to help me,'" said Willie Hughes, Mullan's best friend and shooting partner of 20 years.

"So I took the lead out of 50 cartridges, put Tony's ashes into them and recrimped them, and now every ground I go to I fire one off," he added.

"Tony would have done the same for me," he told Reuters.

Mullan, from Dundalk near the Irish border with Northern Ireland, represented Ireland twice at the sport's World Cup in New Zealand and Australia.

Hughes, from the Northern Irish county of Armagh, said some of the ashes would also be incorporated into clay pigeons that Mullan's friends and family would use at a remembrance shoot later in the year.

The rest of the remains were buried with Mullan's parents in Dundalk.

ihuntbucks · « **Reply #1 on:** April 27, 2004, 10:01:46 PM »

A real "class act"............Rick

Mikey · « **Reply #2 on:** April 28, 2004, 03:10:47 AM »

What a way to go. Mikey.

Zeus · « **Reply #3 on:** April 30, 2004, 02:16:13 AM »

Thats sort of funny, I was thinking the same thing a while back but I wanted to be mixed just a little with some 296 and be used to go hunting. That way I'm still out there. Messed up isn't it...... :lol: GS

Mikey · « **Reply #4 on:** April 30, 2004, 03:51:07 AM »

Zeus: Nope, not messed up at all, at least not from my perspective. I have scattered some of the ashes of every relative and pet on lands they enjoyed and felt they were a part of. I think it is a perfectly natural thought and appropriately reflects one's beliefs in the cycle of life and death, which to me is more natural than being stuffed full of chemicals and confined to a concrete coffin. The later being terrible for someone who loves the out of doors.

I have a buddy who has asked me to preside over his funeral and to scatter his ashes. He initially asked that I scatter them over one of his favorite spots, and I agreed and then offered an alternative - I'll rent an airplane and scatter his ashes over all of his favorite places.

He liked that idea better and since I don't feel there is anything wrong with that notion, your idea of gettin' mixed up with a little 296 is a pretty good one. Ought to be 'quite the blast', doancha think? Mikey.

crawfish · « **Reply #5 on:** April 30, 2004, 03:34:00 PM »

There is a club in GA that will "take you out one last time" on an old fashioned quail hunt, you know horses, wagon, dog handlers, the works. Load you up in a bunch of # 8s' and have a hunt. Pretty neat I think. :grin:

papajohn428 · « **Reply #6 on:** May 08, 2004, 06:44:23 AM »

I guess it's not a new idea, my brother in law died a few years back and his ashes were packed into shotgun shells. Each of his hunting buddies got a box, and was encouraged to use them in faraway places.
As far as I've heard, he's in Ireland, Scotland, Canada, the U.S., and Mexico. I guess that pretty well covers the spectrum! :-)

PJ