Awarded to the HG pilot who made the longest XC during the year

Awarded to the HG pilot who clocks up the most distance in the XC League during the year
(only the best 5 flights count)

The Shane O’Reilly Memorial Trophy

Awarded to the HG pilot who clocks up the highest number of points in the IHPA Competitions League during the year

The Pilots Trophy
Awarded by the membership for outstanding contributions to the sport during the year

Did you win (or do you know who won) this trophy in any of the blank years?
Please help us to fill in the blanks in the IHPA Hall of Fame!

International Hang Gliding Championship between the Great Celtic Nations of
Ireland – Scotland – Wales – Iceland – Isle of Man

 Click here for an RTE interview about the 1981 Celtic Cup

 Awarded to the PG pilot who made the longest XC during the year

(formally the Millennium Falcon Trophy)

Awarded to the PG pilot who clocks up the most distance in the XC League during the year (only the best 5 flights count)

The original Millennium Falcon trophy was donated to the IHPA by paraglider pilot John Penfold.

Originally awarded to “The Pilot’s Pilot (PG)” by popular acclaim at the AGM, it was rededicated 2004 as
The IHPA PG XC League Trophy after the Trevor Wilde Trophy was opened up to both HG and PG pilots.

After its own brief XC (from a clumsy pilot’s hands to the pavement) it was subsequently renamed The Millennium Jigsaw… but you can hardly see the cracks! Nice one Jason!

In 2018, having suffered further 'ablation', the Millinneum Falcon trophy was retired and replaced with a shiny new trophy plate!

Presented to the winner of the IHPA Paragliding Competitions League
(league requires at least 5 tasks to be run to validate)

The Pilots Trophy
Awarded by the membership for outstanding contributions to the sport during the year

Did you win (or do you know who won) this trophy in any of the blank years?
Please help us to fill in the blanks in the IHPA Hall of Fame!

Erected following the tragic death of Shane O'Reilly during the 2003 Celtic Cup
held at Mt. Leinster, this plaque remembers three IHPA pilots who lost their lives
pursuing the sport they loved, and serves as a permanent reminder that
life is both fragile and precious beyond measure.

Fearless I direct my flight
To the vast Olympian Height:
Thence at random, I repair,
Wafted in the whirling air;
With an eddy wind, and strong
Over all the fields of song.
Let me live and let me sing
Like a bird upon the wing.
- Aristophanes c400BC

FAI / CIVL Certified World Records

Ireland 10 Jul 1989 107.1 miles Liavan Mallin Female Horseshoe Meadows, Owens Valley, CA, USA
Class 1 Hang Glider Airwave Magic IV Straight distance to a declared goal

Ireland 13 Jul 1989 132.0 miles Liavan Mallin Female Horseshoe Meadows, Owens Valley, CA, USA
Class 1 Hang Glider Airwave Magic IV Straight distance to a declared goal

The Irish Aero Club 1909

The National Aero Club of Ireland 2009

The photo, below, was was also taken in the same location, on the 30th November 2009, to mark the Centenary of the IAC, now renamed
The National Aero Club of Ireland

  [photo: 30 Nov 2009 - Left - Right (back row): 2L-Symeon Charalabides IHPA - 4L Sebastian van der Meijden IHPA - 7L Philip Lardner IHPA - 12L Graham Tobin IHPA - 14L Dara Hogan IHPA - 16L Eoin Hogan IHPA]

Gilbert McGlennon (25th Aug 2014): I found this video clip in some VHS tapes that were transposed from 8mm movie film. The quality is not good because of 3 media changes. It shows the late Joe Kerrigan with a glider he built and flew himself around 1973 and 1974. The clip shows the first outing with the glider at Lyre near Macroom Co.Cork. It is believed that was the first hanglider flown in Ireland, although I am not sure of that. Joe was certainly one of the pioneers of the sport in Ireland.

[hdplay videoid=4]

Enter the IHPA Archives Dungeon...

Welcome to the Dungeon!

Why go to the bother of scanning in all this ancient guff? You may well ask..!

Well, we could invoke the lofty ideals of preserving the social history and evolution of the Association, but we don't honestly think you'd buy that! No, truth be told - it's more an act of charity towards all those toothless, superannuated old codgers (our founding members) now languishing in their maximum-security twilight facilities; to give them something to read while they gum their way through their mashed banana suppers and wait for the next chemical cosh to be handed out by the nurse. Sad but true, folks - The IHGA was responsible for creating an entire generation of derelicts who enthusiastically destroyed their livers in the pursuit of Irish Free Flight, spurred on by a collective death wish to fly those early suicide contraptions of bamboo and plastic.

 

It's a sad irony that finds those former fresh faced amateur aviators now mouldering away in their terminal years with but a slightly altered death wish on their Alzheimer-riddled minds... 'Oh God... I wish I was dead!' Old age is a cruel thing.

 

So, in a strangely self-serving act of kindness (we hope future IHPA members will do the same for us when it's our time...) we offer up these old club mags so that the oldies can have something to read while they wait for their turn to surf geriatric porn in the 'activity rooms' of retirement homes across the country, and remember the glory days of their lost youth...

Note: If you find it difficult to read any of the pages, just press CTRL+ to increase the size of the page and CTRL- to reduce it again... or get a skimpily clad nurse to sit on your knee and read it out to you in her best Marilyn Monroe breathy voice!

Magazines

Photographic Evidence!

Old IHGA Rave 2023