- An ominous screenshot from Fergal Smith’s momentous web clip.
There are few winds in the world more bitter than the one that gouges away at the West Coast of Ireland for most of the winter. To face its full force is to know the tremor of Satan staring into the abyss between the worlds. Add to this the watery march of Atlantic leviathans and the peculiar, frail, mid-winter light of the high latitudes, and you have another world – one in which surfing reclaims some of the beauty and grandeur drained from it by the relentless excesses of commercial exploitation and daily content mining. When we look back in ten or twenty years on this epoch of the 3-minute Internet clip, Fergal Smith and his faithful Boswell, Mickey Smith, will be remembered as the darkly poignant masters of the lot, the men who took the bastardized music video format and turned it into haiku. Head to fergalsmith.com to see for yourself. Seriously. Watch it.
I got in touch with Fergal recently to get his run down on the historic winter in Ireland. A transcript of our interview is below.
Ireland is notoriously fickle with its wind conditions and lack of winter day light. Roughly how many sessions did it take to compile the clips in your latest video? Do the clips represent all of the notable sessions you had this winter?
There have been too many sessions gone into this clip to try and put a figure on how many. At a guess I reckon for every ten times or more we go for a surf we may have one session worth filming. Even on an all-time day I usually only get one worthy clip from the day if we are lucky! So it took a while, but that to me is what it’s all about. I like that it’s not easy; it makes putting together a good clip all the more rewarding. I want to be proud of what we make and whatever that takes is what it takes. The clip definitely does capture most of the highlights, but only thanks to the best mates ever for giving up their time to do it. My brother Kevin has spent more hours freezing on the cliff lines than anyone in their right mind would put up with. Thanks bro. He has been there for almost every session waiting for me to catch maybe one good wave a session.
Mickey’s creative magic and skill from years of shooting in the water is what makes it all come together. Mick has really inspired and instilled in me the desire to only make things that are really worth doing. Our good mate Willy is from Australia and we have driven him to hypothermia on more than one occasion by staying out at sea all day. People say, “Well done,” to me for making the clip, but all I do is go surfing and enjoy what I do. It’s these guys who put in the crazy long unpaid hours just to capture those few rare moments of magic. The clip we made is a reflection of their hard work really; without them, they are all just memories. Everyone involved loves surfing as much as I do, and I love nothing more than not filming and having them in the water sharing waves and the experience together. I did have some of my favorite paddle waves this winter only for the memory bank, which for me in a lot of ways are more special that way. The clip overall does, however, capture all the high points I have had in the water. The biggest thanks to Kev, Mick and Willy for caring. Cheers brothers!
During the winter are you traveling the length of Ireland’s West Coast in order to surf or are the spots shown in the video mostly in and around Claire?
I used to be on every chance of a swell all over the coast, but I have learned it’s better to chill more often than not. Unless its a mega-swell for one of the rare, classic waves, I just chill down in Clare. It keeps things nice and simple and if you wait long enough it always comes good eventually.
Was there anything different about your approach to big wave surfing this winter?
This winter was my best ever for sure. For starters, I have less sponsors. Thankfully, I still have Nixon, Future Fins, and the end of my contract with AG. It’s shit that I don’t have as much of an income, but it feels way more natural just doing it for yourself. I have also been surfing some rad new boards. Two different types of bonzers, four different styles of single fins, all sorts of twin fins and quads for flying through tubes, and I have been loving riding the bodyboard more than ever. It’s been a fun winter on all sorts of crafts. Up until this winter, I kinda put pressure on myself to be always pushing hard and trying to raise the standard in heavy waves. This gave me a very narrow focus and didn’t allow me to experiment as much or even just have fun. Having this new freedom has brought me all sorts of new amazing experiences. I feel very lucky where I am right now, and I am enjoying every moment of it.
Do you travel much?
I…have decided to not travel as much anymore for many reasons, mainly environmental. That feeling of not going anywhere and becoming very grounded in an area is really something quite special. I live in a 250-year-old farm house on top of a hill in the middle of nowhere. I’ve had the best crew of mates staying throughout the winter, but the only person to have stuck a whole winter is Mitch Corbett. We are both veggies for a few years now and have been tripping out on the hill all winter on many things – but a lot on how good the diet has been treating us. Veggie power!
The Irish economy is still struggling, has this affected your career as a professional surfer? What has kept you from moving to another country?
Ireland is struggling in an economic way, but at least we are starting to get our country back. Back in the boom years, Ireland in my eyes was quite an evil place ruled by corrupted people with only money interests. We may be broke now, but it has allowed the real people of the country to begin to shine. I think it’s a great time to be living in Ireland, and I call on anyone who cares about our little island to come and help Ireland grow again. I don’t mean grow in a money sense but in a cultural/social/environmental way – a way that we can leave this planet knowing we did the very best we could with the time we had for our future generations. I have lost most of my sponsors and some of my friends have left here, but I have my roots firmly planted here in the soil.
Obviously, big-wave surfing can only happen when a very specific set of weather circumstances align. In between swells, Hawaiians, for instance, might freedive and fish. What does one do in Claire during the winter when there are no waves or, more likely, the wind is onshore?
I have often been asked what do you do when there’s no waves. It may seem strange, but I love it! It gives me a chance to do the million other things I always say I will do. Ireland is a magical place that I will never fully appreciate, but at least I will enjoy trying to explore all I can. I grow as much good food as I can and love helping others start growing there own also. So that takes up a lot of time. After that, I love walking in the wild, cycling, swimming, kite surfing, sailing if the wind ever chills out enough. Anything outside really. I love calling on good friends and doing favors for them. Committing random acts of kindness. To me, that is the best gift you can give someone: your time.
Now enjoy spending some of your time watching Fergal blow minds…
Another screen shot from Fergal’s webclip haiku.
