Nocholas Francis COONEY

Nick Cooney won the Irish Open Olympic Skeet Championship in 1971, the Irish Closed Olympic Skeet Championship in 1983, 1985 and 1988; and the Irish Olympic Skeet Grand Prix in 1979, 1982 and 1983. He competed in the World Trap and Skeet Championships both in 1975 at Munich and in 1977 at Antibes and also competed in the European Shooting Championships. In Dublin Cooney shot for St. Margaret’s Gun Club, but he was one of the founder members of the Tipperary Gun Club in 1966, and formed his own gun club in Clogheen in the early 70's. He was given a Cidona Award [now Annerville Award] for Shooting at the 1980 Tipperary Sports Awards.

Cooney studied accounting in school and in the early 1970s was an accountant to M&J Gleeson in Borrisoleigh, a Guinness bittler. He and his brother Pat bought out the firm and eventually diversified, starting Tipperary Natural Mineral Water after they found exceptional water in a borehole they drilled in an effort to improve their drink’s water supply. The water company launched in 1986 and is now part of the Gleeson Group, later employing over 700 people and producing, in addition to mineral water, Merry’s Cream Liquer, Devil’s Bit Cider, and Finches’ soft drinks.