Thanks to Nigel Foley-Fisher of Midland (and Great Western?) Navigators for spotting a few maps with railways:

Dundrum (Co. Tipperary) has the main Dublin to Cork line through the centre of the map;

Motepark (Co. Roscommon): northeast boundary of map is Athlone-Roscommon line;

Black Lakes (Co. Kerry) includes part of the former trackbed of the Headford Junction to Kenmare branch.

Does Curragh West include the railway? (Yes, it does - Ed.)

That's only four. What about Woodlawn near Athenry in Co. Galway, Ardgillan in north Co. Dublin, the World Cup training area near Loo Bridge in Kerry (disused): did Union Wood in Sligo have one? What about Fota (before it became a wildlife park?), Phoenix Park has a rail tunnel under it, Marlay Park has a narrow gauge line and Malahide Castle has a famous model railway... but maybe that's stretching it a bit.

(Remember, there was also a question about the highest point in a county being on an O-map and about county boundaries ...)

The cancellation of next June's Park World Tour race in London has presented us with another opportunity to put Irish orienteering in centre stage. 1999 will be that last year of the Park World Tour as we know it: from 2000 it will be amalgamated with the World Cup series to give a range of long and short races.

Tim Pugh cancelled the London stage of the 1999 Park World Tour, scheduled for Tuesday 15th June. The decision was taken on grounds of finance - no Sports Council or Lottery money and no sponsor. This was part of a double header with Glasgow on June 17th. The Glasgow stage goes ahead, unless PWT decide the trip to the UK for one race isn't viable.

What would we have to do? Provide (and pay for) hotel accommodation for about 60 athletes and back-up people, come up with about £5,000 in prize money and run a short race in a city park with a winning time of about 15 minutes. IOF President Sue Harvey was keen a few years ago to see just such a race taking place in the Phoenix Park in Dublin.

We'd have to organise a publicity campaign to benefit from the event (something at which we're not too good) and try to arrange things like live TV coverage.

Total cost? Maybe £15,000 plus. Any fairy godmother sponsors out there?

The 2001 British Orienteering Championships are underconsideration for Northern Ireland, according to NIOA's Raymond Finlay when he spoke to the IOA Development seminar at Terryglass in October.

The British Championships was this year split into two: an Elite event for M/W21E's and an all-classes event for the rest. If the terrain is considered good enough, as next year in the Lake District, then the two will be reunited. BOC2001 will be the biggest event ever run by NIOA (bigger than anything IOA has done) in terms of competitor numbers and doubtless other clubs will be invited to lend a hand. To get a competitive run at BOC you have to be a member of BOF, so maybe the three NIOA clubs will get an influx of new IOA members hoping for a run? It is possible that the event will spawn a kind of super-championships featuring both Irish and British Championships. There's a lot to be decided yet, so watch this space.

Despite having further to travel than the other clubs in contention for the 1998 Irish Orienteer trophy, Cork Orienteers retained the prestigious award with a win over ancient rivals Three Rock and Lagan Valley at Trooperstown, Co. Wicklow on October 4th. Cork first dispatched LVO with a scoreline of 68 to 50 before finishing off 3ROC 64 to 49.

This year the event featured a small clubs competition too, with everyone else fighting for points. AJAX emerged as top dogs in the small clubs category, scoring 26 to GEN's 14 in the final round.

Some years ago TIO or its predecessor, the LOC Newsletter, had a column called O-BITS. Now it's back ...

Colemanballs: "It's a race that the Kenyans have dominated - but, looking at the records, it's the first time they've won it" (Sports commentator David Coleman)

Casio repairs: Pat Healy writes: "Here is the information for all orienteers using Casio watches. As you all know batteries and straps fail due to fair wear and tear. It's important to have a battery replaced by a recognised Casio agent. They will also replace the waterproof seal for guaranteed repair.

The battery agent in Ireland is Moloney's Jewellers-Main Street-Charleville Co Cork. Tel 063-21038

A replacement battery and seal incl VAT Plus postage (£3) comes to roughly £9. To save time send a cheque together with the watch, write a warning Like "This cheque must not exceed ten pounds" across the top.

If anybody wants a replacement strap contact Pat Healy at an event and he'll replace it on the spot. Charge for a set of straps £6.00. "

Impressive reading: The Munster list of registered orienteering areas recently came to TIO and made impressive reading. It ran to five pages and included 272 areas of which 169 have been printed. Cork O have the astonishing total of 129 areas registered.

Not going to the Scottish 6-Day / World Championships in August? How about Croeso 2000, the Welsh 6-Day from August 6-11 2000 at Dolgellau, then?

Just a thought: Anyone interested in running a coach to the Scottish 6-Day/World Championships? If so, get in touch with the Editor.

JHI for FermO: Next year's Junior Home International will be run by Fermanagh Orienteers on October 9th/10th. The individual event (combined with NI Series 7) will be at the Burren West with the relay next day at Castle Archdale. The 1999 Senior Home International (for classes M/W20, 21 and 35) is on October 9/10th in south Wales with at least one event on the superb forested sand dunes of Pembrey. By a process of elimination the Veterans' event next year must be in Scotland.

Organisers: Please include course length and climb with event results, and the reasons for any courses being voided, plus the names of the principal officials!

Congratulations to LVO's Wilbert Hollinger who recently received a Nestlé Tailteann "Ideal Award" for his contribution to schools athletics. Wilbert teaches at Ballyclare in Co. Antrim.

Carsten Jorgensen, Danish World Cup orienteer and European Cross-country Champion, finished 4th in the 10 mile Glen Dimplex cross-border challenge road race from Carlingford to Newry in September in a time of 46.13. The race was won by South Africa's Hendrik Ramaala in 46.11. Terry Eakin (former LVO) was 7th over-45 in 59.38.

Ned Paul is apparently retiring from the Editorship of CompassSport and handing over the reins to Suse Coon. Suse took on the nagazine for a while a few years ago but it reverted to Ned's editorship again. Ned has put in an extraordinary amount of work on CompassSport since it started in the early '80's as an alternative to the "official" BOF magazine, "The Orienteer". He has come in for a certain amount of criticism for missed deadlines etc, but as a fellow editor (though on a much less grand scale) I know how difficult it can be to keep things on schedule. He has done a superb job all down the years and I wish him many enjoyable years of orienteering in the future, and every success to Suse. Her address is Bellencrieff Cottage, Ballencrieff Toll, Bathgate, West Lothian EH48 4LD, Scotland; phone 0044-1506-632728; fax 0044-1506-635444, e-mail Suse@pages.clara.net

Also stepping down (or trying to) are Scottish newsletter editor AnnWalder (after 13 years editing SCORE) and Joss Lynam (Editor of Irish Mountain Log). Maybe there's something to be said for it ... quite a lot, actually!

This year's Munster Championships were run by Bishopstown Orienteering and Hill Walking Club at Clashnacrona, near Dunmanway, Co. Cork, on November 8th.

Class winners were:

M21E Marcus Pinker CorkO

John Feehan Ajax

John Casey CorkO

W21E Toni O'Donovan CorkO

Aislinn Austin CorkO

Nina Phillips 3ROC

M10A Paul McCarthy BOC

M12A Seamus O'Boyle CNOC

2 Padraig O'Brien BOC

M14A Thomas Cotter BOC

M16A David Healy GEN

2 John Paul Fitzgerald BOC

M18A Alan Barry CorkO

M21L Andrew Quin 3ROC

4 Conor Creedon CorkO

M21S Peter McNamara DUO

2 Ger Harold BOC

M35L Pat O'Donavan BVOC

M40L Senan O'Boyle CNOC

2 Liam O'Brien CorkO

M40S Eugene Desmond BOC

M45L Sean McSweeney DFO

M50L Ted Feehan BVOC

M60L Frank Martindale 3ROC

3 Fred Calnan CorkO

W14A Eimear McCarthy BOC

W16A Niamh O'Boyle CNOC

2 Caroline Dennehy BOC

W18A Susan Healy GEN

W21L Bridget Lawlor CNOC

2 Elizabeth Deane CorkO

W21S Sheila Muckian CorkO

W40L Ellen Feehan BVOC

W40S Ros Hourihan CorkO

W45L Aine OSuilleabhain 3ROC

2 Mary Austin CorkO

W50L Clare Nuttall LEEO

Leinster buy more new signs: In a welcome development, the LOC have bought more of those excellend fluorescent yellow direction signs for clubs to signpost events. Perhaps now clubs will use them? And perhaps they'll check the fixtures list and the information on the IOA answerphone to see where they are supposed to signpost the event from? (Cronybyrne signposted from Rathdrum, eh - Ed.)?

Can we remind all organisers to phone in the results of their events to the two main (Leinster) daily papers. The reasons for this are a) competitors who leave the event area early often want to see who won their class; b) orienteers in general like to see their sport get coverage in the national media just as other minority sports get coverage (It makes us feel good about ourselves ... as the ad goes 'because we're worth it!'); c) orienteering's profile is raised externally. Public awareness of the sport is increased (or at least maintained). This is important when seeking new members and getting grants.

The Leinster League event on March 14th at the Sugarloaf will be a sprint-O event, with about 50% the winning time of a normal colour-course. The average distance between controls will be shorter than normal, the technical emphasis being on control-picking, control drills, and rhythm through the check-points. In the league courses will (probably) be combined.

Street-O at Sandymount on January 17th: Start at Martello Tower, Strand Road, Sandymount. Organiser Joe Lalor (GEN) advises that parking may be tight so please use all three shore-front car parks. Share cars where possible or take the DART or the bus."

Dublin by Night 99: It is hoped that there will again be a series of evening night events in the Dublin area this winter. In the past two years the series has kicked off with the traditional 3ROC night-O in the Phoenix Park at the beginning of February so maybe thet will be the case again. Details at events if they are not arranged in time to get into TIO.

Norway's Hanne Staff cleaned up this summer, with wins in the last four rounds of the Park World Tour as well as the World Cup series. The PWT win brought her winnings for this year's Tour to more than £10,000. Rudolf Ropek from the Czech Republic won a similar sum, winning five of the ten Tour races.

The final race of the tour was in the Liseberg amusment park in Gothenburg in Sweden. Large crowds turned out, despite the rain, to see the action. The course had 23 controls on the 1:3,000 scale map and several notable runners missed controls in the heat of competition: Jorgen Martensson and Janne Salmi were among them.

Several Irish orienteering clubs have ventured onto the World Wide Web. Check out

Ajax Orienteers new website at http://www.ajax-oc.ie

Bishopstown O & HC

Dublin University Orienteers

Lagan Valley Orienteers www.btinternet.com/~nick.p/LVO_home.html

Waterford Orienteers http://www.iol.ie/~newtownw/wato/index.htm

University College Dublin Orienteers

Irish Orienteering Association http://homepage.tinet.ie/~ioa/

NI Orienteering Association www.askip.demon.co.uk/nioa/nioa.html

British O-Federation www.cix.co.ul/~bof/index.html

International O-Federation www.orienteering.org

Another one worth a look is the Irish Mountain Running Association at www.iol.ie/~imra/

Could I please salute the passing of Noel Carroll, a great athlete and motivator. Noel and I trained together at various times during the summer lunchtimes of 1983 to 1985 in Trinity College, Dublin, sharing the flat, even, fast surface of College Park. This track was a real boon for runners who wanted to run fast - no other venue in Dublin came close. Noel always wanted to run fast - he was a model of controlled speed and I was privileged to tag along and try to learn.

- Eoin Rothery, PO Box 1161, Subiaco WA 6904, AUSTRALIA

(Noel Carroll (profiled briefly by Aonghus OCléirigh in TIO87) used to write a sports column in the fortnightly magazine, Hibernia, called "Game Ball". back in the '70's. When TIO's current Editor was Secretary of the IOA, he sent a report to Noel about a Grade 1 event which was to be run at Kilmurry in Co. Wicklow, including the line "on a clear day you can see Wales from the top". This, however, got gremlined into "you can wee Wales from the top" and Noel reproduced it under the heading of "Welsh Leak". However, at some stage the gremlins or a sharp sub-editor spotted the mistake and changed it back to "you can see Wales ...", thus losing the whole point!)

Noel started orienteering around this time and ran for 3ROC and later GEN for a number of years, with his family. One thing which always stuck in my mind was the point he made every day of having an appointment with himself in his diary at go running at lunchtime: it was a vital part of his day and as important an appointment as any other in his busy schedule.

May he rest in peace.

Orienteering is to be included in the 2001 World Games in Akita, Japan, according to the latest IOF Headlines news-sheet. The World Games is widely perceived as a trial for Olympic participation. The competition will include an individual event and a mixed relay for men and women. Numbers will be limited to 80 and widespread TV coverage is anticipated. The total number of athletes will be about 2500. In case you're interested, the dates are August 15-20 2001. The programme includes a "Jet-lag Day" on the 16th!

Ireland has been granted one World Ranking Event next year and it is expected to be the Irish Championships and/or Shamrock O-Ringen. The IOF World Ranking Scheme is ending its first year and the best 6 results for each runner from the preceding 12 months will count. Finland, Sweden, Norway and Switzerland have four WRE's each; Czech Republic, Denmark, Britain and Russia have three; Australia, Austria, Estomia, France, Germany, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, New Zealand and Ukraine have two; Bulgaria, Canada, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Poland, Romania, Spain, Slovakia and USA have one event.

The dates for the main events in the 2000 World Cup have been announced but they will be supplemented by additional short races (formerly the Park World Tour) which have yet to be arranged.

The proposed programme is

15 April 2000 Japan Classic

16 April Japan Relay

22 April Australia Short

23-24 April Australia Classic

1-2 July Ukraine Classic

5 July Belorusse Relay

6 July Belorusse Classic

18-21 July Finland 5-Day

October Portugal Short

Portugal Classic

Portugal Relay

Presidents' Conference 99

The two main themes of the 1999 Presidents' Conference arethe revision of the foot-orienteering elite events programme and the recruitment of new orienteers. The conference, which brings together all the Chairmen or Presidents of the IOF member federations, will be in Scotland on August 3rd 1999, in conjunction with the World Championships.

The three Home Internationals are over for another year. How did we fare (in other words, did we beat the Welsh or did they beat us?)?

The Senior event was in September in Yorkshire and the final score was England 233, Scotland 218, Ireland 135, Wales 129. We had great runs from Allan Bogle, Aonghus O'Cleirigh, Una Creagh, Toni O'Donovan, Colm O'Halloran and from Colm, Aonghus and Allan in the relay.

The Veterans went to the dragon's lair in October. Justin May won the M40L course, Monica Nowlan was 2nd W50 and we had several 4th's and a 5th in the Individual. (Read Brian Bell's very candid account of his travels elsewhere in this issue). In the Relay we finished only 6 points behind Scotland.

Final score: England 184, Scotland 137, Ireland 98, Wales 92.

The Juniors went to Scotland in October too. Allan Bogle finishes 3rd in W18 (but 2nd in M20 at the SHI ...) and could have won but for difficulty with one control. The Individual event gave England 170, Scotland 144, Wales 89 and Ireland 62. At the relay England scored 138, Scotland 240, Wales 161 and Ireland 110.

So over the three events, England scored 725, Scotland 595, Wales 382, Ireland 343. Ah well, better luck next year.

The 1999 Shamrock O-Ringen will be on June 25-27th and will include the Irish Championships on the Saturday. The events are at Faill an Stuaicín, Gougane Barra; Crohane, Glenflesk and Tie na Spideoige, Inchigeela. Entry forms will be circulated with a future issue of TIO or can be obtained from Bernard & Margaret Creedon, "Tavio", Mount Prospect, Douglas, Co. Cork.

The Northern Ireland Championships at Florencecourt had a good representation from all over the country and saw a new East-West Mapping survey of the forested part of the area being used for the first time. The sun shone and the courses were fine. The only problem for the organisers seemed to be the fact that the Challenger Trophy was going on there the same day, with teams of boiler-suited executives team building and doing initiative exercises in the midst of the orienteering. This meant that parts of the area was out of bounds and caused a rather dull road run at the end.

The Northern Ireland Champions (not necessarily class winners) were:

M10A Paul Kingston FermO

M12A Aran Savage LVO

M14A Matthew McCloskey NWOC

M16A Rory Finlay FermO

M18A Trevor Johnston NWOC

M20A Andrew Mein NWOC

M21L Brian Ervine LVO

M35L Charles Reid NWOC

M40L Bill Fyffe FermO

M45L Clive Majury LVO

M50L Wilbert Hollinger LVO

M55 Ernie Wilson LVO

M60L Freddie McCann LVO

M70L Norman Ervine LVO

W10A Kerry Savage LVO

W12A Lyndsey Gibson FermO

W14A Zara Stevenson NWOC

W16A Heather Orr LVO

W18A Beth Smythe NWOC

W21L Heather Ervine LVO

W35L Ruth Blair NWOC

W40L Ann Savage LVO

W45L Jenny Orr LVO

W50L Isobel McKenna LVO

W55L Rosemary Croley LVO

Major boost for SportIdent

Next year all runners in the Swedish 5-Day O-ringen in Dalarna will use the Sportident electronic punching system. This is a major step for electronic punching systems in Sweden. The decision about using Sportident is a co-operation between the 4 next organisers of O-ringen (Dalarna 1999, Närke 2000, Uppland 2001 and Skaraborg 2002. The competitors at O-ringen will also use a train to get to the start. The capacity of each train is 1500 passengers and the travelling time will be 15-25 minutes.

Meanwhile in Finland, the rival electronic punching system, EMIT, is doing well. So far 160 Finnish clubs have ordered 6000 E-cards and 7600 electronic controls.

"This is much better than we had expected, and now the electronic punching system will be used already in the beginning of 1999", says the managing director Kimmo Sallinen at the Finnish Orienteering Federation. The first competition where all the runners will use E-cards in Finland is in January at the ski-orienteering competition in Ylistaro.

Success for EMIT in Finland but in Sweden Sportident is increasing their market position. First the Swedish O-ringen decided to use Sportident the next 4 years and now the Gothenburg Orienteering Federation has decided to buy 500 punching cards and 220 electronic controls. (from the n3Sport www site)

TDC wants to repeat the success of WOC 1997 in Grimstad and invites you to an open meeting in Inverness at WOC 1999. Preliminary time is August 5, 16.00 18.00 hours. At the meeting news and ideas related to TDC's priority subjects will be presented.

TDC priority subjects:

•Electronic Punching Systems

•Interface Standards

•Timing Systems

•Real time position monitoring systems

•WebCasting and Web TV

Companies, individuals, national federations and others are invited to submit proposals to relevant presentations. The meeting will have 5 presentations, each 20 minutes, describing how new technology can improve and/or simplify an O-event for competitors, organisers, the public and media.

Proposals are to be sent to Øyvind Stene, Båstadryggen 27, 1370 ASKER, Norway. E-mail: baastadr@online.no.