My apologies Ferg...

As we say back home "i screwed up", earlier in me blog i said this is Tom Lowe but out came Carve mag and it's frign Fergal Smith. Sorry about that Ferg, so to fix my balls up i have put here the full sequence of Ferg's unreal barrell at Aileens. One of the most insane barrells i have seen there, for someone so young he certainly does charge, i think his philosophy must be go hard or go home...

Al Mennnie's book of...

Never in my life have i read a book front to back cover without putting it down. Right from the opening page you know Al has put his heart and soul into this..."Dad, you are my inspiration. If our love could have saved you, you would have lived forever". The start of the book goes thru his younger years about his family, surf comps and how the big wave passion came about, always these parts of books are not so action packed but you need it to get to know a bit about the person to understand it all. Not long thou into the book Al is talking about his travels and big wave stories ands steps up about 10 knotches in a fast action packed read that i could not put down, actually as the pace grew i felt my own reading getting faster and faster wanting to know what happens next. "I dropped and began to glide into position as Duncan pulled away at speed and the wave stood like a 6 storey office block. As i got to about half way down it, it just lurched on the reef and grew massively above me, I thought i was a gonner" Al talking about the epic Dec 1st Mullaghmore day really got my heart pounding. It's like reading a book of gnarly short stories, each one with it's own uniqueness if there's such a word. "All along the reef where the waves breaks, all in a line, these boils of water were surfacing and pouring out from below the surface. One of them was about 6 feet in diameter and surged out to about 2 feet in height. It looked like a big jelly fish!" Al describing how the wave was breaking on the Mullaghmore Massacre day. I think Al's book is a fantastic read and i'm not just saying that cause he's a mate. I honestly could not stop reading it.
I'm stoked to have the covershot and a few photos inside, thank you Al for asking if i wanted to be part of it, a real honor and a highlight in my photographic career.

cheers mate and good luck

http://www.almennie.com/book.html

2010 St. Patrick's day parade

It was sunny, warm and felt like the first real day of spring, Dublin was buzzing with people from all walks of life and it was good to see there wasn't too many drunks about during the parade. Man it was wedged which made it tricky trying to get any sorta ok shot, i was glad i had my little compact gem the Limus TZ7, the colors this thing puts out is pretty astonishing for such a small camera. Kids were climbing up anything and everything including one that tried to jump from a statue to my shoulders but missed! Ladders were everywhere and overloaded with half a dozen kids all trying to get the ultimate view. It was great to see so many people out smiling and laughing at all the great floats going past. Just heard that over 650,000 attended the Dublin parade with no incidents, that's something to be proud of. Maybe a country in recession but a country with a heart of gold or errr is that green

Tonnta comes home

Well it's that time again and yes it should be another cracker issue on all the going on's in Ireland. This issue covers a little town i call home, well my Irish home anyway, Strandhill. Cain Kilcullen grabs the cover at ....Pete Fleming's first cover, big congrats to you both, damn it i must be the only photog in Europe to not get a cover yet hahahaha. The best of winter, a bit on the Mentawai's and loads more, grab a copy before they all dissappear, should be out in the next week or so.

Tonnta Issue 6

Cranes, cranes and more cranes

It was way back at my Grandfathers birthday i asked if there were any jobs going in the drilling business and that's where my passion for cranes truely started. Almost 20 years on now my passion is stronger than ever. It's a unique job allowing you to play with a big toy all day long and gives you the chance to travel and see alot most would not. I don't drive the tall tower cranes but i drive the heavy lifting crawler cranes, why called a crawler because they're on tracks and crawl around the place...simple. The smallest being the 15Ton Smith in the above photo, my very first crane. Since then thou i have driven cranes up to 180Ton. Picking something up and swinging it around like a feather with the ease of a couple of leavers is great fun, there has been a couple of hairy moments but you need them to know your limits and the cranes!! There was one day the ground i was working on which the digger driver assured me was compacted properly gave way on me while i had a 6Ton load on at full stretch heading for a bridge deck 40m above me, the crane started tipping over fast, i applied a method i had been taught by my mad mate Doobie to get the load to the ground and i just got it down in time, the boys reckon at one stage the back track was that far off the ground you could've walked under it! Instances like this are very similar to tow surfing and getting a serious hold down, my legs were shaking so bad afterwards i could hardly stand but you have to get back on the wagon and straight back into it otherwise you'll lose your wits and confidence. It definatley made me a better crane driver. Here's a few pics of some of the cranes i've driven. The big splash is where i took a boulder the size of a mini and dropped it from 150ft just to see what would happen, there's a big kid in all of us. Also there have been some real magic places to work like the New Brighton beach pier in Christchurch, NZ pictured just below a long period swell cruizing in, what a view. What's next for me, well my dream is to drive the crane pictured at the botton. It's a 3,000Ton crane which will lift it's on weight and more...dreamtime...

120Ton twins

All Black flag in Ireland

The big splash

hmmmm...where?

My dream...

SIRF

It was a few years ago Allan Mulrooney and brothers Barry & David Mottershead started the Strandhill Indonesian Relief Fund to help rebuild schools in Java and help the communities out after a devastating earthquake not long after the Tsunami. Strandhill as a community poured their hearts and souls into it fundraising left, right and centre and getting 5 schools built. I had decided to give them my support as well by having people sponsor for how much weight i lost in 6 months and ended up raising enough for a school. So i would like to take this moment to personally thank everybody who supported SIRF and all the fundraising, hard work organising events and a huge thank you to the 3 lads for allowing us all to be part of it. Here is a video of the 5 schools that got rebuilt and as you can see the kids are so happy to have it. This i will never forget, seeing the video really hits home how lucky we are, i am just so stoked to have been part of it all.
Thank you
Aaron

SIRF visit Java Indonesia 2010 from Allan Mulrooney on Vimeo.

Paddle vs Tow

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It’s a big question & 1 that will never have everyone agreeing on. I’m a longboarder at heart, not a new age one but a traditionalist, I luv the feeling of surfing a big old 30 pound log shaped 50 years ago easing into a bottom turn then drawing a line straight down the point with toes on the nose, my last board thou was a lite weight nose rider but in recent years I have taken to photography as my passion for big waves basically exploded here in Ireland with the birth of Aileens (cheers Mickey). Paddle surfing is where the heart of surfing is, although I remember a particular Bruce brown movie from the early 60’s with Phil Edwards and Del Cannon towing behind a boat on their 30 pound logs, I wonder where tow surfing would be today if they had thought to take it a step further than just on a river, my point is it’s all about fun and the rush. Tow surfing started off on waves that were moving too fast to paddle into so that makes sense but things have changed in the last few years, waves these days are being towed at barely head high and others are being paddled at 4-5 times overhead which leaves alot of confusion over when to tow. There are slabs out there that break so hard and fast that if you paddle you will get injured and generally the body boarders can make the drop and pull in but they too can still get a fair hammering, one spot in particular in Ireland has had alot of injuries in it’s short life but 90% of them are due to paddling in and this is where the tow surfing comes into it’s own, already standing and getting whipped in at 30km/hr gives you a huge advantage to survive the deadliest of waves and most importantly get the ride of your life.

Then there’s other spots like Aileens where body boarders are paddling into pretty big barrells on a certain swell, air dropping out of the lip on takeoff, these guys are nuts but are having the time of their lives. There’s no way thou that a surfer could consistently paddle in these waves at this size and make each one so that’s when the jet skis come into it, problem is there’s guys paddling it. General rule of thumb if you get to a break and there’s paddlers on it you leave them to it. But there’s something very unique happening here, the body boarders are glad to see the skis turn up as when they do get caught inside someone will head in and pick them up, Aileens is not a nice place to get caught in “boulder alley”. So far there hasn’t been a problem with the skis towing at the same time as they always wait for the biggest wave of the set where usually the paddlers are scrambling for the safety of the shoulder and the surfers getting towed are whipped in well away from the paddlers. Anyone who tows out here will always ask the guys paddling first if they mind if they tow a few of the set waves. With the way things have worked out there’s a really good relationship between the two and is actually bringing body boarding and surfing closer together which I think is a awesome thing cause we all there for the same reason, why fight over it! The most recent session at Aileens saw some incredible tube riding by both body boarders and tow surfers, everyone was hooting everyone, naturally the tow surfers got more waves but the body boarders got some pretty frign deep barrells too, the boys on the skis always ask if the body boarders want a tow for the craic and they luv it, although it can be a bit bumpy for them!

So what’s the answer to the above question, well in my eyes it’s easy. Tow surfing should be for breaks that are abnormal to paddling and makes it a hell of alot safer, it doesn’t have to be 40ft to justify it but if you do tow and there’s paddlers out there don’t be a f#@$%# idiot on a ski, respect the paddlers like the tow crews in Ireland are doing, ask them if they mind if you grab a few and if they say no respect it and go somewhere else, go in and help them out if they need it and most important of all everyone is out there to grab a few waves so don’t be a greedy b#@&#%>

Respect

Here's a couple of shots from the recent paddle & tow session at Aileens,

Tom Lowe's barrell #100 for the day!

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Jack Johns paddle in

Tom Gellespie

Shambles getting sucked over

R.I.P Nana Pierce

On Sunday morning i got the sad news that my Nana had passed away. Talking to Mum tears flowed, she was a good old stick with a lust for life and bloody good at making yummy things to eat like her famous shortbread. As we say back home she had a good innings departing at a grand age of 96 seeing more in her lifetime than most. Nana was so proud of all her relatives from sons and daughters right down to greats of grand children, she loved us all dearly and we love her so much. It's really weird being so far from home when this happens, i haven't seen her for 7 years and i tell you what my love for her grew if anything. I went to the Cliffs of Moher and said my goodbye's & as i was driving early in the morning i saw this moon. It was amazing and straight away i thought of Nana at peace up there smiling down on us. Thanks for the great times Nana.

Man on the moon my arse...that's my Nana smiling down on all of us.Dad & NanaMum & NanaMe waving goodbye R.I.P.
Also on the day Clare and in particular Aileens was going off, an awesome session went down with both bodyboarders and surfers taking to it. Everyone knew each other and all got there fair share of waves. Tom Lowe was back in great form and bagged a few bombs like the one below. I then went for a visit to DH surfboards owner and shaper Tom Doidge-Harrison and checked his latest shapes out, here he is in the bottom photo holding the board and the photo sequence i took from the hell paddle session last easter, the wave after this he freefell 20ft and broke 2 ribs!!

Crab...going left!!Tom Lowe back to his best

Tom Doidge-Harrison

Mullaghmore kicks 2010 off

Well it was a over a month since any decent swell hit up here and only a few were around to grab some fun waves at Mullaghmore. Thankfully the big thaw had happened and there was no ice skating getting there! I decided to shoot from the land for a change and it was alot drier! Althou i did miss the excitement of being out there. Easkey grabbed the rope and was first to tow and got a bit of a foamy one but still some size in it and very very shallow. Neil grabbed one but then they had some running problems with the ski and had to retire early. Paul and Barry swapped around and fed off each other carving it up bagging a few waves along with Shane and youngster Peter who took this gnarly vertical drop, it was pretty heavy looking. It wasn't anywhere as big as they hoped for but it was a good practice session for them all with a little sun out as well, a bit warmer than the recent cold spell...
Easkey on a foamy slippery face

Paul carving it up

Sth African Barry ripping it

Shane from Cork

Young gun Peter Clyne's verticle drop...

...and this happened on the next one!