ISRF held the TALBENNY UK OPEN CHANNEL RACE on June 1st where the birds were liberated at 8 .00 am in a WNW wind. M Byrne Duffy & Son gained a 1st, and 17th with a yearling Check P cock. On the day 432 members sent 2173 birds. Their winning velocity was 1115.910 y/min, M Byrne Duffy & Son fly 118 Miles and 985 Yrds with a minim of 60 to 70 miles of Irish channel for the birds to navigate over before they reach home.

The Talbenny race point can be a difficult race depending on the weather but M Byrne Duffy & Son got 13 out of 17 birds home in good time. The ISRF have two races when racing on the channel The channel race is a open race and the inland race is a federation race. There are five channel races in the OB program Talbenny U K, three Penzance U K and St Malo (France).

M Byrne Duffy & Son race in the Shelbourne Premier RPC which has a club membership of 23 members. M Byrne Duffy & Son have been racing pigeons for the last 40 years. The Shelbourne Premier R P C is a new club formed by the amalgamation of the Shelbourne and Dublin premier clubs a few years ago. These two clubs have been in existence for a long time in the Ringsend/ Pearse street area of Dublin and the members of these clubs have topped the ISRF channel race many times in the past. The average bridge sent by the club to the channel races is 100 to 200 with up to 500 in the land races.

Mickey Snr. has raced in different clubs in his time including Dublin Homing Club ,Premier, and the Shelbourne. The photo includes - centre Mickey Jnr with Talbenny open winner 2013. Garry is on the left with Penzance open winner 2012 and Mickey Snr is on the right. The Talbenny open winner is a yearling and it was its first channel race.

The Penzance winner 2012 is an 09 hen and as a YB gained 4 open Talbenny open YB and has been on the channel 5 channel to date.

M BYRNE DUFFY & SONS race on the natural system with each of the three partners taking a section each of the 90 foot loft. They breed 100 YB racing 50 down the land and 10 to 20 across the channel . The YB get 3 to 4 races. All yearlings must cross the channel if they are right, and generally they send 2 year olds to France. The partnership have mainly bred off their 20 pairs of stock pigeons and only breed off the good channel racers.

The stock birds mainly come from the north of England from JORDEY HASTEINGS BEERWICK NORTH , RAY BOUGHY Newcastle, SUNGAWAY HARTEYPOOL NORTH. Over the years Mickey was 2nd open a few times on the channel only winning the open race for the first time 2012 from Penzance.

Both sons take a great interest in the birds and there is great competition between the three on race day to see which section gets the first bird. A good system and good birds is a must to be successful racing on the channel and on the land. 

The Irish channel sorts out those birds that want to come home but the best may not return home on the day for different reasons which sometimes cannot be explained. It takes birds with great courage on the day to fly the Irish channel and many pigeon men in Europe find it hard to believe that pigeons can fly from France to Ireland and cross 2 channels to get home to Ireland.

The federation committee wish all the channel flyers the best in the coming weeks .

M Roche Pro. ISRF