Two surfing and music festivals take place in the west of Ireland in the coming weeks. Laurence Mackinasks Irish surfers whether the music chosen has anything to do with surfing, and looks at the sport's influence on pop culture.
BLUE skies and hot sun, brightly coloured clothes and upbeat music, speed, athleticism, adrenaline and beautiful people in achingly gorgeous locations - sorry folks, this is surfing in Ireland, so forget the sunshine, the warm water and the laid-back attitude. Think ice-cold wetsuits on a soft, wet morning, and waves that whip and snarl on deserted beaches. Think waking up at the crack of dawn in a rusty camper van and a quick dash into the water before you have the good sense to retreat to the warmth of the pub. Think goose pimples, numb fingers and knocking the breath out of yourself with that first plunge beneath the waves. But most of all, think of the sheer, unadulterated adrenaline rush to the head and heart that comes from surfing waves that few have had the pleasure of riding - and the pint of Guinness waiting as your reward.
This is surfing in Ireland. It isn't big (although it's well on the way), it isn't clever and it certainly isn't easy; but it is utterly thrilling, and it is spawning a culture all of its own, far removed from the sunny-side-up songs of The Beach Boys and Dick Dale.
Ireland's surfing culture is perhaps most evident in film. Ireland has some of the best surfing in Europe, and the recent discovery of a monster wave that hides out beneath the Cliffs of Moher has made the west coast the envy of the international surfing world.
A new film, which will get its premiere at Cois Fharraige, a surfing and music festival that will take over Kilkee, Co Clare from Friday, September 7th to Sunday, September 9th (see panel), follows the first surfers to challenge the beast. And Then The Wind Died. . . was made by Gavin Gallagher, who poured his heart, soul and every penny he had into video production company, Dreamcatcher Productions.
"I never thought it would leave Lahinch or go beyond being a small town local thing," says Gallagher. "The first year was incredibly difficult. I had a massive bank loan and a mortgage. I even had to go on the dole for a while. While all this was happening, I was chasing waves around the west coast of Ireland, waking up in the back of a van, chasing the swell and filming the morning light on a budget of zero. I was living on baked beans, fruit and nuts.
"We heard that this wave had been discovered at the Cliffs of Moher. John McCarthy [current senior Irish surfing champion and founder of Lahinch surf school] got a jet ski and I just happened to be the guy on hand with the camera and documented the whole thing."
The "whole thing" involved McCarthy being towed at breakneck speeds to the sea below the Cliffs of Moher to surf the gargantuan Aill na Searrach wave, which can hit heights of 35 feet.
"They're talking about it all over the world," says Brian Nevin, who has been surfing for 10 years and is helping organise the Cois Fharraige festival. "This is the new, most appealing wave to big wave surfers in the world at the moment. It's still pretty much untamed; to coin a cliched surfing term, it's very gnarly."
The Aill na Searrach might be the best thing to happen to Irish surfing since Kevin Cavey. Cavey, who is regarded as the father of Irish surfing, first had the notion that Ireland's waves could be tackled, after reading a 1963 Reader's Digestarticle about surfers on head-height waves. The following year, Cavey went on a business trip to the US and took a detour to California and Hawaii. "I got to go out on Sunset Beach and I had a 12-foot board stuck in the back of the Ford Mustang, like all the tourists do. I had the joy of getting a ride and then got wiped out. I felt like a tourist among the Hawaiian surf culture," he says.
That culture left its mark. Cavey, who's grandmother is American, admits that he always had a "Pacific vibration" in his blood, and he helped set up a surfing stand at the Irish Boat Show in 1966. This led to a trip along the west coast of Ireland where a gang of pioneering surfers tracked down the best waves the country had to offer.
Forty years later, this trip was repeated, with the same old hands on the boards, and it was recorded for posterity. The Silver Surfari, a documentary made by Naomi Britton and Angus Hubbard, mixes a wealth of film shot by Cavey (who is now in his 70s but has lost none of his edge or enthusiasm on the board) and his band of surfers on their initial trip with footage from last year's reunion. The film is a glowing, charming tribute to those who developed the sport in Ireland and is a celebration of Irish surfing culture.
"One of the early films was Ride the Wild Surfand at the time I was hungry to see what a board looked like and how they stood on it," remembers Cavey. When he started surfing, there was little coverage of the sport, other than the occasional footage of "a dog on a board" on the news. "I was absolutely starved for information," he says.
The big-budget Hollywood surfing movies, such as Point Breakand Blue Crush, are treated with good-humoured if universal disdain by surfers. The jury is still out on Surf's Up, a movie about a bunch of surfing penguins which got its Irish premiere on August 10th.
"I don't like surf movies where it opens up with thundering waves. I like them to be very gradual and bring you into the sport right in the end. I think these types of films blow their cover very early," Cavey says.
Surfing is a lifestyle sport, with its own intricate culture, and here, even the music that surfers listen to seems to be an attempt to cope with the unforgiving Irish elements; music designed to get the blood pumping and make the mind forget the relentless cold of the seas that besiege ragged Irish shores.
Aaron Gallagher (Gavin's brother) is a surf instructor at Lahinch, and is also currently organising the surfing competition end of the Cois Fharraige festival. When he gets to the beach, it's certainly not the Beach Boys that's on the stereo.
"In winter when you're trying to get into a freezing wetsuit and you're thinking 'oh this is nonsense', you need some tunes pumping and blaring in the van, and then you're thinking: 'Get your sexy ass into that suit,' " he says.
"Before I go surfing I'm listening to a different style of music. You listen to something to get you pumped up, Queens of the Stone Age, Metallica, whatever, and then it's a different vibe after," says Brian Nevin. It also helps if the people playing the music know a thing or two about catching waves, such as Jack Johnson, Ben Harper, John Butler and Donovan Frankenrider.
Surfing is also having a profound impact on Celtic Tiger Ireland's favourite cultural pastime - marketing. Guinness may have gotten there first, with its Surfingad in 1999 (see panel right), but now it seems every company is trying to incorporate the surfing lifestyle into a marketing package. Sausage purveyors Denny are getting in on the act and Renault has struck a deal with surfing company Rip Curl to produce a limited edition version of its Clio car.
"Sex used to sell, now it's surfing," says Aaron Gallagher. "Looking back at the Guinness ad, it definitely gets the heart thumping for a surfer."
"Inherently, the reason people surf is because it's a beautiful sport, there is nothing competitive about it," says Gavin Gallagher. "It's one of the most artistic sports in the world, there is no scoreboard, you can't define it, the environment is constantly changing - you can't have the exact same conditions twice. A golf course is a golf course, but the ocean never stops changing."
But no matter how much music you listen to, or how many films you watch, until you pull on that damp wetsuit on an Irish morning that could strip bark from a tree and launch yourself into the rolling waves, you'll never know how it feels. So get your feet wet. The water's freezing, but it's very fine indeed.
[ www.irelandsurfari.comOpens in new window ]
Festival fever
Two Irish surf music festivals are set to merge the best of surfing culture with a host of musical acts in the coming weeks.
Cois Fharraigeis taking place from September 7th to 9th in Kilkee, Co Clare, and will see Badly Drawn Boy, Ocean Colour Scene, and Fun Lovin' Criminals take to the stage along with local boys Paddy Casey, Kíla and The Blizzards. On the surf side, there will be a two-day, invite-only competition on September 8th and 9th on Doughmore Beach. Day tickets are €29.50, and three-day tickets are €69.50. www.coisfharraige.com
The Bundoran Ocean Festival(September 30th to October 3rd), backed by the Irish Surfing Association, features a whole heap of free gigs, including Jerry Fish and the Mudbug Club and the Undertones. Other events include an ocean film festival featuring Stacey Peralta's documentary Riding Giants; a number of exhibitions; an ocean food festival; and a number of surfing and water-sport demonstrations, including free surfing and body-boarding lesson. The festival culminates in the glamorous RNLI Ocean Ball. www.isasurf.ie/index.php?page=bunocenupdate
