Aileen’s is not a place for the fair-weather surfer. Photo: YouTube//Screenshot
Tim Bonython leads an interesting life. He spends most of it on the road, chasing the biggest swells the planet can offer up. Portugal — and Nazaré in particular — has a hold on him, as you’d expect of a guy who loves to film huge waves — but this year, Nazaré has seen some incredibly wild weather, so Bonython scrammed and decided to head to Ireland, instead.
Ireland is not a place for a surfer who likes things easy. Powerful weather, huge waves, cold conditions, and all manner of other obstacles stand in the way of getting a good one, but it’s that difficulty that makes it so appealing to a certain type of person.
“The more I go back, the more I respect it,” Bonython wrote. “It’s no Hawaii. It’s no Tahiti. There’s no palm trees. No warm water. No easy angles. It’s cold. Raw. Unforgiving. If you want the best shots here — you earn them. Nothing comes easy. The Atlantic makes sure of that.”
This is the third time Bonython has found himself in Ireland this winter, and Mullaghmore gave him what he was looking for.
“Before Christmas, Mullaghmore delivered three major swells — including what I’d call the swell of the season,” Bonython said. “Then February hit. The Atlantic lit up. Massive west swells marching straight into the Clare coast.”
This time, though, Bonython picked a different place. He’d already seen Mullaghmore doing its thing, and the conditions were lining up for another spot that’s equally wild: Aileen’s.
“What you want here is the right swell direction with direct offshore winds — and when that lines up, this crazy right-hander called Aileen’s wakes up,” he explained. “Aileen’s is an exposed reef slab sitting beneath the Burren and the Cliffs of Moher Geopark — one of the wildest backdrops in Europe. It’s heavy. It’s unpredictable. And it’s not built for comfort.”
Surfing Aileen’s is not easy, but neither is filming it. Even for Bonython, a guy who has filmed surfing in most of the craziest places one can film surfing.
“There are no easy options,” he said. “Swimming in 9–10 C° degree water? Not happening. Jet Ski? Not available. So that leaves land. Halfway down the cliff gives you the safe, straight-on angle — but it looks like a long drone shot. Too predictable and the waves don’t look so big. So there’s only one real choice: a 70-minute crawl down the cliff. Navigate the boulder beach. Avoid falling rocks. Find the angle. That’s Ireland. And this swell brought out some of the best in the business.”
This particular swell brought some of the best slab surfers out of the woodwork. Nate Florence, Russell Bierke, Tom Lowe, Willem Banks, and a young charger out of Australia named Lex O’Connor were standing up, while Shane Ackerman and Irish locals Seamus “Shambles” McGoldrick, Tom Gillespie, and Jack Johns held it down on the bodyboard front.
This is just part one of Bonython’s ode to Aileen’s, so keep an eye out on his YouTube channel, Surfing Visions, for part two.
