Aoife Gormally has sights firmly set on being first Irish woman to shoot at an Olympic Games

As a thirtysomething who got her foot on the property ladder earlier this year, Aoife Gormally is something of a rarity.

“Now it’s a ‘doer-upper’, the 32-year-old from Ashbourne stresses and being a fully-qualified carpenter meant she had a bit of running start into Ireland’s housing bear pit. But it’s her reason for jumping in so quickly that makes her even more unusual.

She’s invested in bricks and mortar because otherwise she was afraid she’d fritter away most of her money on guns.

“I said if I don’t get on the ladder I’ll spend it all on shooting,” admits the Meath woman who confesses to being “obsessed” with trap (clay target) shooting and her dream of becoming Ireland’s first female Olympic shooter.

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Gormally is a rarity in both her trade and sport but makes little of it.

“There’s other women shooting other disciplines but usually only two of us in [elite Irish] trap competitions and we compete with the men. I get asked that about work all the time too – ‘why’s there not more women?’ – but to be honest I don’t know and never even thought about it.

“I’ve always worked with lads and never felt like the odd one out. It’s only in recent years, with all this talk of diversity and inclusion, now it feels like everyone’s looking at me. In shooting too, I’ve never felt any way different.”

She played Gaelic football until her mid-teens when a family and local tradition took over.

The national shooting grounds (now in Banagher) were in Ashbourne and her grandfather, who worked for Guinness, started with the factory’s gun club.

“He had a break from it and then started again when I was a kid and I’d tag along with him and my dad.”

She still shoots with one of his guns but her main one is a snazzy Perazzi, made in Brescia, where her sport “is like the GAA. Every little town in Italy has a shooting ground and we go to over to Milan a good bit to train.”

Guns cost from €6,000 to silly money and the price of lead is rising which means that ammunition is getting even more costly. “Then there’s the diesel and travelling but sure if you thought about price you wouldn’t do any sport,” she grins.

Shooters use goggles with coloured lenses to make the clay targets stand out visually in different weather conditions and she has had laser eye surgery too but it’s hand-eye co-ordination that matters most.

“Even when I took my first shot as a kid I hit straight away. My sister tried it but she was left-eye dominant even though she’s right-handed which made it more difficult for her.”

Gormally is currently traversing the M50 to work on the vast construction sprawl of Cherrywood for John Sisk & Son, who trained her as a site manager after she’d completed her four-year apprenticeship.

“You either move on [after apprenticing] or they train you for management, which is a big investment on their part. At one point I was the only girl who went start to finish but another girl has done it since. I did woodwork in school and couldn’t believe the apprenticeship system. Like, I actually get paid to do this?”

When the building boom stalled her in 2011 she worked as a “site foreman” (her words) for them in Canning Town and Lewisham, so quit her sporting passion for almost three years.

“I got offers to go to a shooting place outside London but renting a house it was difficult. Like where do you leave the gun, especially if you’re away?

“That’s why I came home, I missed shooting. I came back to go to my first European Championships, came in the top 15 and said I’m not going back.”

Five-time Longford Olympian Derek Burnett, who was ninth in Athens in 2004, is a great mentor. “Derek was the first one who told me I could be good. He brought me to my first international and I still train with him.”

She equalled the Irish domestic clay record by shooting 99 out of 100 in Mullingar last year, missing only her 98th shot. Burnett is the only one to ever shoot a perfect 100 but he did that abroad.

Gormally travels to England regularly for competitions and coaching from Joe Neville, fourth in the 1972 Olympics and a legend in GB shooting.

“Joe instils discipline, to have control of the gun. He coaches you not to rely on the second shot. I’d shoot two shots but usually hit with the first.”

She shot 67 out of 75 (22/20/25) in the opening round of the European Games on Thursday and a perfect score of 25/25 in the final set has given her confidence ahead of the last 50 (2x25) qualification clays on Friday, from which the top six shooters will qualify for the final.

She is currently ranked 23rd in the world and the 12th European on that list, and these European Games are the first of three Olympic qualifiers this year.

Gormally was 15th in the same event in Minsk in 2019 and seventh in the 2021 European Championships, just one target away from the final where the top three got Olympic spots.

“It’s hard. The margins are so tight. You could have the same score as another girl but if you missed it later [in the series] than her you’ll lose out [on count-back].”

Her bid to qualify for Tokyo 2020 was also stymied by Covid which stopped her getting to some ranking events but, competing for Ireland since 2015, she feels she’s served her shooting apprenticeship now and has made one key change.

“Joe used to say ‘there’s nothing wrong with your technical ability, it’s all in your head and that’s beyond me’ so he put me in touch with Paul Hughes, a psychologist, who’s also in the UK and I’m in a much better place.”

Gormally used to regularly throw up before competitions, describing herself as “a worrier in life in general”.

“Then I had a few conversations with Paul and I went to a World Cup and I didn’t get sick beforehand, or upset, or worried and shot really well and enjoyed it.

“It was like you don’t have to ‘not’ think these things. You can think them but accept them. I never knew there was such a simple [mental] switch.

“It is time consuming. I’m shooting Saturday and Sunday every weekend, there’s a lot of travel and in my event you can have more bad days than good because the margins are so small but it’s nearly like a drug. I always want more. It’s the drive, the competition, the sacrifice. I love all that.

“More people probably have faith in me than I have at the minute,” she reckons. “I never thought I’d be as close as I was last time for Tokyo. That gave me the belief that I can do it, that on my good day I’m as good as anyone else.”