Such is the beastly nature of the giant winter swells off Mullaghmore Head in Sligo it’s impossible to tell exactly how big the waves can get.
So Conor Maguire can’t say for sure if the wave he caught last Thursday was the biggest anyone has ever surfed there, but it was unquestionably one of his biggest and best.
It was also one of the heaviest, and the coldest, and Maguire knows what he is talking about. The 32-year-old from Donegal now lives in the area, and five years ago surfed what was then considered one of the biggest winter swells to ever hit Mullaghmore. Last Thursday matched that and then some.
“People are calling it 60 foot, it’s always hard to tell,” he says. “And I hate putting a figure on it myself. It can sound a bit cocky. But the feeling was just incredible, that day was so pristine, the wind was blowing the right way and held the wave perfectly.
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“Exactly the way you want, so you could position yourself in a really dangerous position, and just make it out of it. At the start it only felt like a 20-foot wave, then it felt the reef underneath, and it just stood up into this huge mountain. And then it just was a crazy view from there.”
In October 2020, during the second period of lockdown, a similar winter swell during Hurricane Epsilon came in from the North Atlantic, aimed towards Mullaghmore. By then Mullaghmore had already become renowned as one of the best big-wave surfing spots in the world, after featuring in the seminal 2008 documentary Waveriders, narrated by Cillian Murphy.
Maguire has been surfing at Mullaghmore for over 20 years, and once he saw the weather charts for last Thursday he quickly started assembling his backup team at Red Bull surfing.
“The circumstances were a lot different five years ago,” he says. “It happened during the second lockdown, so we had to get special permission from Sligo County Council to go and surf. The things the ocean were doing that day I’d never seen before. It was a once-in-a-lifetime really, and it was so dangerous.
“Whereas last Thursday every wave was surfable. Everybody saw the chart from a week out, and many of the best big wave surfers in the world flew in.
“I just got really lucky, because I’ve a really good team I’ve worked with the last 10, 15 years, all close friends, and we went out super early in the morning, left the harbour in the dark, were out there at first light. There was such stiff competition, everyone jostling for position, wanting the best wave of the day.
“Because I’m from there, people kind of respected that, and when I stood up for that wave, everyone just let me go for it. Back in 2020, it was another freak of nature, but the wave broke off the reef, broke into a deep channel and kind of shut down, and I didn’t get to fully ride out of it. So I was kind of haunted by that.
“This one it felt like a bit of redemption. The wave was so big, and felt like a perfect shape, so I got to go really deep in the barrel, ride it out technically. That’s the pinnacle of our sport, and it felt like a full circle moment.”
The epic video footage also suggests Maguire is having the surf of his life, but there is something else at play.
“There is definitely a massive fear factor. I mean everyone out there is absolutely s***ing themselves, and they’re the best big wave surfers in the world. It’s also one of the heaviest waves in the world, and that’s what makes Mullaghmore such a pure unicorn in the surfing world. There’s nothing else like it. That’s why it gets such media attention, it’s one of the wonders of the world.
“Five years ago, the swell was massive. I’d been surfing for 20 years, had never seen a chart that big, it’s crazy it happened again five years later. But we might never see another day like that.”
Among those to message him last week was Kelly Slater, the 11-time world champion considered the greatest surfer of all time.
“A lot of people are saying it’s one of the best waves ever ridden, the wave of the century kind of stuff. Kelly had actually messaged me the last time as well, in 2020, so it’s always nice to get recognised by those guys.
“But I didn’t watch the clip for a few days, I just wanted to remember the view for what it was, but when I finally watched the clip, I was blown away.”
