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The Cleggan Shoot, one of the best sporting shoots in the Province of Northern Ireland, is situated in the North Antrim hills above the Glens of Antrim, which face the great Scottish peninsular, The Mull of Kintyre. You can see the Scottish coast from the Cleggan mountain.
Cleggan Lodge was built by Earl O’Neill in 1822 to keep one of his mistresses and as a shooting lodge on the edge of his extensive grouse moors in North Antrim. He died without a male heir and after Gladstone’s Irish Land Acts the great Irish estates diminished.
In 1927, Sir Hugh O’Neill, the 1st Lord Rathcavan, bought the Cleggan Estate but, as post war sheep farming destroyed the heather habitat, the Irish grouse became almost extinct, while Government forestry planted much of the land.
Hugh O’Neill, the 3rd Lord Rathcavan, started a partridge shoot in 2000 on some of the old Cleggan grouse moorlands, adding to an already fine pheasant shoot along the steep banks descending from the mountain.
The Cleggan Shoot team (opposite photo) receiving the Irish Shoot of the Year Award 2008/9 at the Shanes Castle Game Fair. From left; Joe Taylor (Shoot manager), Tom Simpson, picker up, Steven Baird, Head Game Keeper, the Hon Francois O'Neill with Tiggy and Poppy!
