History of Paintballer.ie
Intro
Firstly: Any website relates issues or problems, then check out the forum for that stuff here:
http://www.paintballer.ie/webmaster
I decided to write this up before it was all forgotten about…
PaintBaller.ie is the home of paintball in Ireland. If you are interested in paintball and you are in or coming to Ireland that Paintballer.ie is the place for you. Set up initially under the guise of Irish-Paintball.net back in April 2006, it has grown from strength to strength.
History
Richie Buttle co-founded the DIT Bolton St. Paintball Society in September 2004 with Colin Donoghue. They had great success with that society including numerous awards with in DIT and Inter-varsities wins in 2006, 2007 and 2009. Richie had the paintball bug and wanted to increase his involvement with the sport. Frustrated by the lack of knowledge and participation in Ireland, he then went on to set up Irish-Paintball.net. The website was basically a place where people from all over Ireland (and later the world) could come together to discuss all things paintball and help to develop the game.
Contrary to popular belief and many emails of inquiry, PaintBaller.ie is not a company, it does not own or manage a paintball team, league, venue or business, yet. It is merely an online community of Irish paintball players who work voluntary for the good of the sport. It does not have a budget for any sponsorship or none paintball related events.
Trips
May 2006 saw the first organised paintball trip for the Irish-Paintball.net members. 32 souls took to the hills of Dublin to the Crossfire venue. It was a great day which sparked off a revolution of the paintball scene in Ireland. There were many people turn up with their own gear and it was great to see.
The IPPA
After this trip, there was many more trips, generally one a month or so. Each trip getting better and better as the interest grew and grew. At this stage, Irish-Paintball.net had less than 100 registered members and very low web traffic. At this point, there was lost of talk of people having legal trouble with their gear and getting more gear. The Paintball Association of Ireland was then set up and subsequently renamed to the IPPA – Irish Paintball Players Association. The aims of the IPPA are basically to promote the sport in Ireland and to help people and teams get into and take part. The IPPA is not an official body as yet, although it has elected officers whom are working voluntary on such issues as the legality of paintball in Ireland and the setting up of a national paintball league i.e. The IXL
Speedball comes to Ireland...properly
Speedball was relatively unheard of in Ireland, even for most of the members of Irish-Paintball.net. This was to change when a new paintball venue opened in September 2006, enter Barrage Paintball at the Pudden Hill Activity Centre. Barrage was convinced to purchase Sup Air field for their site and I don’t think that they have looked back since. Speedball being the tournament version of paintball, the one with the inflatable bunkers. On average, there has been a speedball game up at Barrage once a month since they bought that set-up, theses games being from various college games and tournaments and the Irish-Paintball.net organised games.
The College Scene
The college paintball scene started to improve a lot during the latter part of 2006. DIT and Trinity were the first and are the main users of the site to help promote their activities. RSCI, UL, NUIM and DBS were also on the books. The main development of the college paintball scene was the organisation the 2007 Inter-Varsities. The IPPA and Irish-Paintball.net put a lot of effort into making the IV’s 06 probably the best speedball tournament in the Republic to date. It was help up at Barrage Paintball. Bring on the 2007 IV’s. You can get more info on the Irish college paintball scene at:
http://www.paintballer.ie/college
Teams
Following the development of the speedball facilities in Ireland, the next natural progression is the formation of a team. Escarmouche have been playing in Northern Ireland for years, but were relatively unheard of down in the south. The Dublin Reapers were the first speedball team to form in the south. They are made up mainly of a mix of Trinity college students and alumni. The next team to form was the Dublin Dons. Unfortunately, this team disbanded shortly after one friendly practice match. Some of the members who actually wanted to play paintball joined with others to form Risk Factor in mid 2007. Risk Factor is Irelands 3rd active speedball team. The new kids on the block are Karnage. Formed in September 2007, they have the will to win and will do well.
Following the formation and development of these teams, it was now time for them to compete at an international level. The Millennium Series is a European Speedball Tournament which is made up of 5 events throughout the year. Escarmouche have been playing in the MS for years now but 2007 saw a second Irish team enter. The Dublin Reapers (not Rapers) have been training hard for about a year now so they were the most ready to take on Europe. You can read up more in Ireland’s paintball teams at:
http://www.paintballer.ie/teams/
Website Latest
The next big step for the website was the acquisition of the domain www.paintballer.ie. This was important for many reasons. A .ie domain is great to have if you are an Irish business or organisation. Secondly, it is a simpler and easier name to remember which should mean more web traffic. During the change over, the site also got a bit of a visual revamp also, to how it looks today. PaintBaller.ie is maintained by the many moderators and by my self as the admin. It’s the mods charge (voluntary) to keep an eye on the forums and make sure that it runs smoothly. At it’s current size, it is still a relatively easy task. For more info on the who’s who of PaintBaller.ie, see:
http://www.paintballer.ie/staff
So there you pretty much have it, a summary of PaintBaller.ie and what it’s about. Of course this little history is only from the beginning of Irish-Paintball.net, forum member Rob is a far more experienced paintballer and has much more info to share on the history of paintball in Ireland on a while.
If you have any questions, comments or something to add, then you know what too…..
Firstly: Any website relates issues or problems, then check out the forum for that stuff here:
http://www.paintballer.ie/webmaster
I decided to write this up before it was all forgotten about…
PaintBaller.ie is the home of paintball in Ireland. If you are interested in paintball and you are in or coming to Ireland that Paintballer.ie is the place for you. Set up initially under the guise of Irish-Paintball.net back in April 2006, it has grown from strength to strength.
History
Richie Buttle co-founded the DIT Bolton St. Paintball Society in September 2004 with Colin Donoghue. They had great success with that society including numerous awards with in DIT and Inter-varsities wins in 2006, 2007 and 2009. Richie had the paintball bug and wanted to increase his involvement with the sport. Frustrated by the lack of knowledge and participation in Ireland, he then went on to set up Irish-Paintball.net. The website was basically a place where people from all over Ireland (and later the world) could come together to discuss all things paintball and help to develop the game.
Contrary to popular belief and many emails of inquiry, PaintBaller.ie is not a company, it does not own or manage a paintball team, league, venue or business, yet. It is merely an online community of Irish paintball players who work voluntary for the good of the sport. It does not have a budget for any sponsorship or none paintball related events.
Trips
May 2006 saw the first organised paintball trip for the Irish-Paintball.net members. 32 souls took to the hills of Dublin to the Crossfire venue. It was a great day which sparked off a revolution of the paintball scene in Ireland. There were many people turn up with their own gear and it was great to see.
The IPPA
After this trip, there was many more trips, generally one a month or so. Each trip getting better and better as the interest grew and grew. At this stage, Irish-Paintball.net had less than 100 registered members and very low web traffic. At this point, there was lost of talk of people having legal trouble with their gear and getting more gear. The Paintball Association of Ireland was then set up and subsequently renamed to the IPPA – Irish Paintball Players Association. The aims of the IPPA are basically to promote the sport in Ireland and to help people and teams get into and take part. The IPPA is not an official body as yet, although it has elected officers whom are working voluntary on such issues as the legality of paintball in Ireland and the setting up of a national paintball league i.e. The IXL
Speedball comes to Ireland...properly
Speedball was relatively unheard of in Ireland, even for most of the members of Irish-Paintball.net. This was to change when a new paintball venue opened in September 2006, enter Barrage Paintball at the Pudden Hill Activity Centre. Barrage was convinced to purchase Sup Air field for their site and I don’t think that they have looked back since. Speedball being the tournament version of paintball, the one with the inflatable bunkers. On average, there has been a speedball game up at Barrage once a month since they bought that set-up, theses games being from various college games and tournaments and the Irish-Paintball.net organised games.
The College Scene
The college paintball scene started to improve a lot during the latter part of 2006. DIT and Trinity were the first and are the main users of the site to help promote their activities. RSCI, UL, NUIM and DBS were also on the books. The main development of the college paintball scene was the organisation the 2007 Inter-Varsities. The IPPA and Irish-Paintball.net put a lot of effort into making the IV’s 06 probably the best speedball tournament in the Republic to date. It was help up at Barrage Paintball. Bring on the 2007 IV’s. You can get more info on the Irish college paintball scene at:
http://www.paintballer.ie/college
Teams
Following the development of the speedball facilities in Ireland, the next natural progression is the formation of a team. Escarmouche have been playing in Northern Ireland for years, but were relatively unheard of down in the south. The Dublin Reapers were the first speedball team to form in the south. They are made up mainly of a mix of Trinity college students and alumni. The next team to form was the Dublin Dons. Unfortunately, this team disbanded shortly after one friendly practice match. Some of the members who actually wanted to play paintball joined with others to form Risk Factor in mid 2007. Risk Factor is Irelands 3rd active speedball team. The new kids on the block are Karnage. Formed in September 2007, they have the will to win and will do well.
Following the formation and development of these teams, it was now time for them to compete at an international level. The Millennium Series is a European Speedball Tournament which is made up of 5 events throughout the year. Escarmouche have been playing in the MS for years now but 2007 saw a second Irish team enter. The Dublin Reapers (not Rapers) have been training hard for about a year now so they were the most ready to take on Europe. You can read up more in Ireland’s paintball teams at:
http://www.paintballer.ie/teams/
Website Latest
The next big step for the website was the acquisition of the domain www.paintballer.ie. This was important for many reasons. A .ie domain is great to have if you are an Irish business or organisation. Secondly, it is a simpler and easier name to remember which should mean more web traffic. During the change over, the site also got a bit of a visual revamp also, to how it looks today. PaintBaller.ie is maintained by the many moderators and by my self as the admin. It’s the mods charge (voluntary) to keep an eye on the forums and make sure that it runs smoothly. At it’s current size, it is still a relatively easy task. For more info on the who’s who of PaintBaller.ie, see:
http://www.paintballer.ie/staff
So there you pretty much have it, a summary of PaintBaller.ie and what it’s about. Of course this little history is only from the beginning of Irish-Paintball.net, forum member Rob is a far more experienced paintballer and has much more info to share on the history of paintball in Ireland on a while.
If you have any questions, comments or something to add, then you know what too…..
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