Big waves, big crew, big wipeouts, big fun. All in a day’s work at Mully. Photo: Tim Bonython
If you follow surfing from around the world, you likely have heard that Ireland was the place to be for big wave surfers in December. Well, one of them, anyway. Mullaghmore went richter, and thanks to swell forecasting, some of the best big wave surfers were there — and so was Tim Bonython, a man who seems to be at every big wave spot for every big wave swell.
“This swell event was the swell event of the year,” Bonython wrote. “Last December, 2024, it was Peahi in Hawaii and this year all the swell charts pointed to Ireland. Any big wave surfer who is looking for these events knows that if you’re in Europe, Mullaghmore was the place to go.”
Some of those surfers included Conor Maguire, Gearóid McDaid, Ollie O’Flaherty, Enda Curran, Nic von Rupp, Natxo Gonzalez, Andrew Cotton, Peter Conroy, Mason Barnes, Matt Etxebarne, as well as Justine Dupont, James “Storm” Carew, Ned Hart, Ben Larg, Gabriel Sampaio, Luca Padua, Benjamin Sanchis, Jerome Sahyoun, Alessandro ‘Alo’ Slebir, Sebastian Steudtner, and Clement Roseyro. Quite the stacked lineup, right? And they all absolutely scored.
“Up to 44-foot seas with direct offshore winds and a massive period (meaning a very intense storm),” Bonython explained. “With this size, TOW is the GO! The ocean moves so fast that it’s almost impossible to paddle into it, although Tom Lowe did just that. Anyway, it was a lot more than we hoped for and even though it was icy cold, everyone that was there got to ride some incredible waves. Some actually rode some of the best waves of their lives.”
