Back from a week spent traveling Irelands west coast.

Took my recently delivered Nuematic, christened it with a nice pint or 3 of Guinness

Luckily even though it was summer, caught two decent swells.

1st surf on the Neu was at a place called Easkey, nice clean head high+ lefthanders, stoked.

Then onto a place called Bundoran, has a reef break called "The Peak", long lefts and shorter hollow rights, our 1st surf here my mate and I caught it as the swell peaked and the tide came right, just us out for 2 hours. stoked

Back down to Country Clare and few more days surfing arround Lehinch, mainly Doughmore near Doonbeg, great beach breaks.

All in all great place to go on a surf trip, next time will go in Spring, and tackle some of the great point breaks which should be working.

Word of warning: be prepared for the Bundoran life guards at the town beach trying to stop you going out when there is a offshore, took me 5 minutes to convience them that a.) I would not be blown out into the middle of the Atlantic, b.) I was riding a high performance bit of kit & c.) if they let me go out on my mat it did not mean that they had to let all the kiddies out with their assorted blow up €5-€10 "inflatables" . My mate could not stop laughing for the whole session

that is classic about the gaurds.

sounds like you had a great time any pics ?

would love to have video .



reminded me of the first time i tried to surf salt creek
gaurd came swimming out in the water to tell me i couldent ride
i had to talk to the head gaurd and explain my way into a session

Yes Mattitude I certainly was pleased with my choice of desination. If you come to Europe and want to maximise your chance of decent surf, Ireland should be on your list, took a few pics and video, but none of mat surfing.

If you ever go to a place called Lehinch in County Clare, you must go to Frawley's.


Best pint of Guinness in County Clare, and run by the gentleman in the picture below, Tom Frawley who is 87 years young, and the grandson of P Frawley who opened the pub/store 140 old years ago. 6 bar stools and a small bench, then its full.

6 bar stools, a small bench, then it's full.....


And there's 3 people behind the bar???

Now that's what I call a job creation scheme.

My friends parents have a place about 30 min from Lehinch.

We're thinking of hitting it this autumn

As its my current weapon of choice i'll be taking the Mat

Hello Bluey,

I may be in the UK next summer and able to get in a week or so surfing. One option is Ireland - sounds like you did a bit of driving. If you were to do the trip again is there anywhere that you would recommend as a base. When I don't know a place, I would prefer to locate myself somewhere with a variety of options both wind & swell wise rather driving all around the place aimlessly.

If you rather pm that is ok,


Bob

Hi Bob

Its a tricky call regarding where to base yourself as I have only done one trip over there.

I did County Clare (Lahinch), Sligo (Easkey) & Donegal (Bundoran). Got good waves everywhere, but reckon that Donegal probably would fit your bill if you wanted an almost guranteed offshore wave (as long as some swell) as coast line faces, north, south and west. You would fly into Knock or Belfast.

If you end up looking for a wave in UK waters, be sure to let us know. Summer isn't the best time for us, but when the swells come in, who cares.

I've been very busy with campaign work to persuade our government to use a little more insight before building a 10 mile wall across our biggest estuary, hence I haven't posted here much of late. But I do know, to the minute , where you will find a very decent wave in August, and that is my home break, the Severn Bore. We will be having a gathering of the clans by the riverside at the end of August to coincide with that. The spring tides will also be very surfable in June and July as well. Very unusual to have surfable tides at that time of year. August tides are pretty full-on in the size department as well.