Here's what it looks like to be surfing's
fiercest bare-knuckle boxer waiting for some Irish coffee to pour.
There's worse things to see. Photo: Uh, Shane Dorian.
Words by Jake Howard
For a man that’s been seemingly
everywhere, chased psycho surf the world over, by now one would assume
that Shane Dorian had at least dipped his toes in Irish waters. Come to find out, he’s never sampled a slice of the good life in the land of pits and pubs.
“I’ve been wanting to go to Ireland for about 10
years and have almost gone a few times,” says Shane, who’s coming off of
his first-ever score there. “The North Atlantic is very fickle and epic
forecasts in the past often changed for the worse very quickly. This
one looked really good and I jumped at the chance to go.”
Teaming up with Benjamin Sanchis and the
Billabong Europe crew, the strike was a couple of years in the making,
but judging by results, the patience paid off.
“We got really lucky and scored epic waves,”
continues Shane. “We surfed a big right slab that was super powerful and
challenging. The local surfers had the place wired and were killing it.
It was all really cool and I was so stoked to be there. The power is
amazing, just really raw deep water swells hitting shallow ledges. It
was challenging, but when you got a good one it was awesome.”
Of course, as the old saying goes, you can take
the boy out of Hawaii, but you can’t take the Hawaii out of the boy.
Translation: the only drawback to paddling into Celtic caverns is the
cold.
More than just a chance to charge somewhere new,
this trip was an opportunity to track some family roots. While he’s
spent all of his life living on the Big Island, Shane’s got Emerald
blood running through his veins.
“My father was Irish and his family was from
Ireland,” says Shane. “I’m going to dig up some details now that I’ve
been there. I love Ireland. I loved the waves, but even more, I loved
the chance to experience the culture and the people. Being a visitor I
really tried to be mellow and slowly get in rotation in the lineup. The
guys were really cool. We had a couple nights at the local pub and
shared a few pints of Guinness. I would like to say thanks the locals
there. I know what it’s like to live somewhere with sensitive breaks and
everybody was really cool. I was blown away by how wired they had the
waves. The boys there charge really hard. The fact that my ancestors are
from Ireland makes it extra special.”
