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Cliffs of Insanity
Surfing in Ireland was once considered little more than a fringe and slightly lunatic pursuit. The treacherous coastline and ice waters of the Atlantic did not sit comfortably with the stereotype of surfing as the favoured pastime of the bronzed and privileged. But with the discovery in the past few years of the gargantuan Aileen’s wave at the Cliffs of Moher and other heavy waves, the Irish coast has become one of the worst kept secrets in world surfing.
In Cliffs of Insanity, the Irish Times sportswriter Keith Duggan tells the story of a dedicated group of surfers in County Clare whose lives revolve around the pursuit of Ireland’s wildest waves. The book traces the evolution of Fergal Smith, the young Mayo man whose intuition for big waves has earned him a serious reputation and explores the world of Mickey Smith, the roving Cornish man who discovered Aileen’s and whose breathtaking surf photography has caught the Irish landscape in an entirely new and original light.
Bitter cold days, broken bones, busted boards, scars, near drownings and countless hours in the freezing water trying to read the ocean is the price they pay for those few transcendent seconds when they master a wave.
Cliffs of Insanity is about the importance of pursuing what matters in life but it is also about community and friendship, and the passionate pursuit of a way of life that flies in the face of everything championed in Ireland over the last decade.
In Cliffs of Insanity, the Irish Times sportswriter Keith Duggan tells the story of a dedicated group of surfers in County Clare whose lives revolve around the pursuit of Ireland’s wildest waves. The book traces the evolution of Fergal Smith, the young Mayo man whose intuition for big waves has earned him a serious reputation and explores the world of Mickey Smith, the roving Cornish man who discovered Aileen’s and whose breathtaking surf photography has caught the Irish landscape in an entirely new and original light.
Bitter cold days, broken bones, busted boards, scars, near drownings and countless hours in the freezing water trying to read the ocean is the price they pay for those few transcendent seconds when they master a wave.
Cliffs of Insanity is about the importance of pursuing what matters in life but it is also about community and friendship, and the passionate pursuit of a way of life that flies in the face of everything championed in Ireland over the last decade.
272 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
May 30, 2017
I was in a bookshop and this book found me. I'm researching the risk and reward of extreme sports - the mindsets and the personalities - so Cliffs of Insanity was perfect material. I particularly resonated with one of Duggan's subjects, John McCarthy, who began to strip down his attitude to big wave surfing which had been the epicentre of his life, and made himself understand why surfing was so important to him. It was about the adrenalin and uncomplicated joy of the waves, but there was also something else...
April 2, 2019
As good an Irish book I have read .
February 2, 2017
I had picked up this book in a second-hand bookstore, as it was not one that I really, really wanted to read, but the subject matter of big wave cold water surfing in Ireland quite interested me. So I was prepared to invest my time to read it – actually it’s not a long book at all.
Basically the storyline is about the beginnings of surfing in Ireland and the realisation that with some new super-duper wetsuits it’s actually possible to withstand the cold of the water – even in Winter – and discover some huge waves off the West coast of Ireland.
The book paints interesting pen pictures of the people concerned, the way they live, the waves they discovered and their ‘careers’ in the tough world of professional surfing. In fact, over Christmas I had watched the movie ‘Waveriders’, which features a lot of these guys (it’s mostly men who feature) and I also read Barbarian Days by William Finnegan, which pretty much documents a whole lifetime’s worth of surfing.
And yet, despite all this, the book failed to move me all that much. Maybe I’d heard the story before, and in fairness the ‘discovery’ of the waves is kind of interesting. But at the same time, I found the whole ‘then I realised there would be a wave off Fiji on March 10th and I just HAD to be there’ narrative a bit wearing. HOW do these people, without any visible means of support, criss-cross the globe in search of momentary thrills? I know we’re told ‘when I got there I had to eat baked beans and cardboard and sleep in a pigsty as I had no money’ – but it’s still an ongoing mystery to me.
Maybe I have read too many books about surfing at this stage and watched too many documentaries and films. I suppose if I hadn’t, this book would be an eye opener, and it’s well constructed. But it didn’t really float my boat. Sorry…
Basically the storyline is about the beginnings of surfing in Ireland and the realisation that with some new super-duper wetsuits it’s actually possible to withstand the cold of the water – even in Winter – and discover some huge waves off the West coast of Ireland.
The book paints interesting pen pictures of the people concerned, the way they live, the waves they discovered and their ‘careers’ in the tough world of professional surfing. In fact, over Christmas I had watched the movie ‘Waveriders’, which features a lot of these guys (it’s mostly men who feature) and I also read Barbarian Days by William Finnegan, which pretty much documents a whole lifetime’s worth of surfing.
And yet, despite all this, the book failed to move me all that much. Maybe I’d heard the story before, and in fairness the ‘discovery’ of the waves is kind of interesting. But at the same time, I found the whole ‘then I realised there would be a wave off Fiji on March 10th and I just HAD to be there’ narrative a bit wearing. HOW do these people, without any visible means of support, criss-cross the globe in search of momentary thrills? I know we’re told ‘when I got there I had to eat baked beans and cardboard and sleep in a pigsty as I had no money’ – but it’s still an ongoing mystery to me.
Maybe I have read too many books about surfing at this stage and watched too many documentaries and films. I suppose if I hadn’t, this book would be an eye opener, and it’s well constructed. But it didn’t really float my boat. Sorry…
October 10, 2016
Worth it for the surf stories contained herein
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews