Apr 24 2008
Dodging Bullets In Donegal
The plan to head to Donegal on Friday evening after work was slightly delayed. We hit the road at 8.15 Saturday morning.
Picking up a friend of mine, Gary, in Dublin, we met the rest of the gang beside Tesco in Letterkenny. Wrecked tired, hungry and thirsty, having traveled 232 kilometers, we just wanted to sit. The prospect of running around in the mud, carrying heavy guns and dodging bullets did not sound particularly appealing. But we pulled ourselves together (Mary and I needed a pint before being able to pull ourselves together, naturally) and headed towards The Old Foundry to risk our lives, to dare to be bold, to step once more into the breach, to……okay, it’s just paintballing, but it hurts!
I was surprised they allowed us to do it, as our group consisted of just six people (a certain blogger and another member of our group, Niamh, were too chicken to be shot repeatedly and endure pain and bruising – wimps).
The day was broken into a number of missions or objectives, and we were broken into two teams (they wouldn’t allow boys vs girls – is that some sort of sexism?). Our team, Mary, Lottie and myself, took on Stella, Gary and Nicky. The first mission, Capture The Flag, was triumphantly won by our team. My genius girlfriend legged it for the flag and took cover before the enemy had even left their base.
After we gained a 2-0 lead, our Nazi-esque opposition clawed back to 2-1, forcing us to pull out all the 
stops and regain our 2 game lead. It’s fair to say, at 3-1, our near saintly side was feeling confident, and their satanic, evil and fairly ugly side were dejected and lost. How then, HOW could we let them get those last two games to make the day a draw? Grrr argh!
We finished the painball with a free-for-all which was undoubtedly the most barbarous part of the day. Pellets flew in every direction. There was no triage – everyone had to die!! With only Mary and myself left standing, the result was inevitable. I strode confidently in her direction as I heard her screams and cries. She was out of bullets, her gun spouted gas and nothing more, the small bale of hay was not sufficient cover, as I demanded her surrender and claimed victory as king of all! The small amount of guilt I felt at reducing Mary to tears quickly subsided as I accepted my crown.
Chicken?
Yeah, the thoughts of bruises, much, sweat and dirt is SO great, as opposed to a leisurely stroll around a place we’d travelled across the country to see for the first time.
I’d always prefer to be an unbruised wimp with a nice pint of Guinness in a Letterkenny pub after a sunny stroll around than be complaining for the entire time about being shot in the temple, the chest, the leg, the neck, be wrecked after running around and be sore for a week…
And you called Gary Darragh!!
๐
Oops! Fixed now!
I have to say he took GREAT PLEASURE in shooting me and leaving me more bruised then I already was and only seconds away from breaking into tears, he felt no remorse at all :-0.
The outfits really didn’t do us any justice at all did they? They didn’t even offer protection from the flying bullets aiming at peoples nipples and heads!!
Ahh but Darragh we did see a bit of Letterkenny eventually and it was really worth it :-).
On second thoughts, maybe we should have drank even more, therefore we would not have felt any pain and would have taken more risks and thought we were invincible LOL.
It should come with a health warning of having to have copious amount of drink and padding on to avoid extreme pain.
and their satanic, evil and fairly ugly side
Who you calling satanic, evil and fairly ugly Mr?!
@Stella Oh, sorry, was I unclear in the post? I was referring to you and your stinking team!!!!
I am going to have to reconsider replacing them beers now for that comment! Ya cheeky pleb. ๐