Easkey Britton: vompeting at Cois Fharraige surfing festival
It could be the infamy of Aill Na Searrach, or Aileens, our very own monster wave in Co Clare. Or perhaps it's the advances in wetsuit technology that allow us to brave the bone-chillingly cold water. Whatever it is, surfing has officially gone mainstream. Every day this summer surf schools around our coastline have been busy introducing a new generation of Irish kids to the sport, and next weekend Ireland gets its first surf and music festival, Cois Fharraige, which takes place in Kilkee, Co Clare, with performances by, among others, Fun Lovin' Criminals, Badly Drawn Boy and Ocean Colour Scene.
Competing at the official surfing event in Doonbeg next weekend will be three-time Irish national surfing champion and current British pro-tour champion Easkey Britton. The 21-year-old from Rossnowlagh in Co Donegal, who in April became the first woman to surf Aileens, comes from good surfing stock - her dad, Barry, was one of the pioneers of Irish surfing and taught Easkey to surf when she was five years old. "My whole life has revolved around the sea," she says.
Britton is working as a coach at Fin McCool Surf School in Rossnowlagh before resuming her studies in environmental science and psychology at the University of Ulster in Coleraine. "I am not a full-time professional surfer, but when I finished my Leaving Cert I took three years out to focus on surfing and got some sponsors on board to help me get to competitions." Those three years included travel to some of the world's surfing Meccas, including Hawaii and Australia.
Do we really have the waves to compete with those places? "Well, on a good day Ireland is well up there with them, but the problem is that it's very fickle and very unpredictable here, so you have to be very patient. The sport has really taken off in the past few years - we can see that ourselves at the surf school. I think up to now it was quite a hard sport to break into, but events like this, where there is music and surf combined, will help introduce lots more people to it."
Of her ride on the infamous Cliffs of Moher wave she says: "It was a tow-in, which is where you are towed by a jet-ski to get sufficient speed to catch the wave. It felt completely surreal, the sensation of the wave growing behind me as I dropped down the face and the cliffs looming up in front of me. And the speed - what a buzz to have so much speed. I felt totally vulnerable and invincible all at once."
Cois Fharraige begins in Kilkee, Co Clare, on Friday. See www.coisfharraige.com