Louth's top darts players battle it out for Alan Quigley Perpetual Shield

Thursday saw the second Dundalk darts event in The Northend Bar 'Summer Series of Darts' take place. This time around it was the turn of the Alan Quigley Perpetual Shield.

Alan sadly passed away in 2014 at a very young age, his passing was an awful blow to his late wife Caroline, his daughters Maxine and Leanne, his sister Sharon, his niece Anna and all of the extended Quigley and McAlester Families.

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Alan had won silverware with every team he had played with from the Bridge Inn to Harry's Bar to The Commercial and with the Stags Green just a few months before he passed away.

47 throwers entered the competition, and the calibre of throwers included many household names from the North East. The format of the competition is double in - double out.

If one player hits a double to start and their opponent is sluggish to begin the match, it could be over for them before they even register a score on the board.

Several throwers also travelled over from Cavan which shows how far word has travelled of a good wee competition that's taking place in Bridge Street.

Like last week, a number of games in the prelims and first round were games that may have merited being the final match of the night.

The previous week's finalists, Conor McArdle and Conor Dunn faced off in the prelims and McArdle got the better of his opponent again.

Martin Carvill, one of the stars of the TV documentary about the Newry Dart League, was drawn out against County Cavan star Michael Gillick and Martin narrowly saw off Michael to progress to the next round where he would defeat Alan Dullaghan before being eliminated with Marty Dixon, a man whose family come from D'Avenue.

Marty would then go on to beat Ciaran Treanor (who had earlier put out last year's winner, Eamonn Rogan) to reach the overall semi-finals.

Davy Gonnelly was progressing nicely under the radar and had a treble 29, then a double 19 checkout against Paddy Gibney before seeing off James Quigley, Davy would eventually be eliminated by Simon Wykes in the board semifinal.

Last year's runner-up, Stephen Shields, was hoping to go one better this year.

In the prelims he beat his father, Hughie and in the first round proper beat Colin Taaffe before going on to beat two Cavan residents, Sean Maguire and Graham Unwin in successive rounds to reach the semi-finals.

The semi-final draw saw Conor Mc Ardle narrowly beat Stephen Shields and Simon Wykes getting the better of Marty Dixon.

The final seen Simon against Conor and it was always going to be a tight contest the first four games went with the throw and it was level at 2-2 in a best-of-seven final.

In the next game, Conor raced into a seemingly unassailable lead but then Simon dug deep to get himself back into the match and Conor broke throw for the first time in the final.

The next game was a real battle and Conor hit double-one to seal the victory and a title in successive weeks. Next Thursday night, 3rd July, sees the St Oliver's Old Folks Charity three-a-side take place.

First played in 1954 and originally sponsored by the Cairnes Brewery, it's one of the oldest cups still played in Ireland.

The organising committee would like to thank all their sponsors for their continuing support: Gonnelly Signs, Mullens Roden Place, Fives Dundalk Cabs, Smashers in Eimear Court, Northend Bar Ring A Drink, Mulligan Oils and Coal, Bellurgan Precision Engineering, BarOne Bookmakers.