Irish surfing giant Al Mennie: ‘I started going into the sea after dark. I couldn't see the world, and the world couldn't see me'

Irish Times

12 hours ago

The last thing Al Mennie checks before entering the rapidly darkening North Atlantic is the wide beach and clifftops directly behind him. These are relatively calm and inviting conditions for night swimming, not comparable to the blackout depths of winter, but still Mennie isn't taking any chances.
He knows everything about this place, the kilometre stretch of Castlerock Beach on
Co Derry's
Causeway Coast. It's right beside where he lives and breathes the ocean every day. For swimming, Mennie now prefers to go out by night, when this stretch of ocean he has known all his life presents itself in a virtually unrecognisable way.
He's dressed in a thick wetsuit and flotation vest, cap and hood pulled down tight over his head, leaving his eyes and nose exposed and his great ginger beard. Some people who already know Mennie might wonder why he's not carrying a surfboard; he's revered as one of the mavericks of big-wave surfing in Ireland, a giant of a man riding 60ft waves.
Though he grew up in
Belfast
, Mennie learned to water ski at the age of six and was surfing by nine, thanks to his sea-loving father Des, a passion and obsession that has led him to chase some of the biggest waves in the world, from Mavericks in California to Nazaré in Portugal, and back to Ireland. In his early 20s he featured in the seminal 2008 documentary
Waveriders
, narrated by
Cillian Murphy
, which traces the roots of Irish surfing and the discovery of the beastly winter swells at places such as Mullaghmore Head in
Co Sligo
.
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Even on tranquil summer nights such as this, Mennie, now aged 44, is concerned about the people who may not know him, who may be fearful for his state of mind entering the water alone in the darkness.
'When I first started night swimming here, I didn't want anyone to be unnecessarily concerned for my safety,' he says. 'That was very important to me. Because it's happened to me before: people have called the coastguard when they've spotted me heading out into big waves. Or way off the coast.
'I know what I'm doing, 100 per cent. But to the untrained eye, a tourist or someone, they don't know what I'm doing. I need to be careful people don't see me going into the water like that. I creep in under the shadows. The last thing I need is for the coastguard to be called, taking away the emergency services from where they need to be.'
All this is the subject of his ninth book, Night Swimming: How to Swim Through the Darkness, and how he started swimming in the dark five years ago.
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During the first pandemic summer, like many others, Mennie found his daily routine suddenly turned upside down. His home beach at Castlerock, recognisable by the landmark Mussenden Temple atop the basalt cliffs – with views to Donegal to the west, Portrush to the east – became a place of respite for many people in the area.
Al Mennie at Downhill Hill Strand beach, near Coleraine. Photograph: Chris Maddaloni
Al Mennie: 'Everything is magnified, it's very intimidating. But you can't catch these big waves on the edge. You have to commit.' Photograph: Charles McQuillan/Getty
'The Covid regulations kept changing, and although no one ever said you couldn't go surfing, I decided not to,' he says. 'When they lifted the regulations on where you could go to exercise outdoors, we were just swamped with people. The beach was crowded all day. I also had this desire to get back in the sea. It was driving me mad.
'So I started going in after dark, when everyone else was gone. Gradually started swimming out further, further. Then it just became my thing to do. A release. And a reconnection to the sea. Suddenly I couldn't see the world, and the world couldn't see me. It was just me and the darkness.'
He has always felt connected to the sea. His late father, Des, came from a fishing background and moved to Northern Ireland from Scotland at the age of 16, later marrying Mennie's mother, Jenny, a model from east Belfast. Throughout his childhood they would always spend time by the sea, mostly around Castlerock, fishing for pleasure and swimming in all conditions.
'I can't remember ever being taught to swim, or to surf; it's always been part of life,' he says.
He had been 'obsessed' with the big waves at Mavericks in California, and the surfers who rode them, since he was a kid of 12 or 13. 'We had this VHS tape, called Monster Mavericks, guys with massive surfboards. I'd constantly be pressing pause, watching back in minute detail.'
His father died of a heart attack in July 2003, aged 50, when Mennie was only 22. His grandfather had died similarly suddenly and young. That left Mennie feeling a close connection to his own mortality.
Surfer Al Mennie. Photograph: Charles McQuillan/Getty
Al Mennie at Downhill Hill Strand beach, near Coleraine. Photograph: Chris Maddaloni
'Those two events are constantly in my head, that I'm probably going to die young,' he says. 'That's why I'd be so go-go about life.'
His father loved to swim. 'He built himself a small swimming pool in his back garden. He'd been swimming in the back garden the evening he died. Came out of the pool, sat down and died.
'The day before, the last conversation we had was me telling him I wanted to go to California, to surf the big waves at Mavericks. He told me, 'You're ready. Don't worry about your mother; I'll talk to her about it'.
'I got on a flight the next morning to go to England, and when I landed, got a phone call to say my dad had just died. I know 22 is not that young to lose your dad, but I'm very aware of what it's like to have your life changed very dramatically like that.'
Mennie spent the following six months training before flying to California to surf Mavericks in December.
'When you get there, it's just raw and wild, and there's no pausing it,' he says. 'It was absolutely frightening. The first day I was 8½ hours in the water, and I didn't catch a single wave. After three or four more days, I got on a lot more waves. Everything is magnified, it's very intimidating. But you can't catch these big waves on the edge. You have to commit.'
After his experiences at Mavericks, Mennie was inspired to chase the largely unexplored big-wave surfing spots in Ireland, joining another big-wave pioneer, Richie Fitzgerald, and others as they discovered the giant winter swells in places such as Mullaghmore in Sligo, and Aileen's, the exposed reef break beneath the Cliffs of Moher in Co Clare.
In December 2007, with Fitzgerald, he caught the then largest-known swell in Ireland at Mullaghmore, estimated at 50-60ft, which featured at the end of the Waveriders film.
He went on to make his own documentary in 2023, Ireland to Nazaré (via Mavericks), on the evolution of big-wave surfboards in Ireland.
Despite standing 6ft 5in tall, and weighing about 108kg (17 stones), Mennie says size is not necessarily an advantage when to comes to big-wave surfing – nor indeed the colder, more intimidating conditions associated with night swimming.
'Most surfers are smaller, lighter – which is an advantage, because they can whip the surfboard around very quickly, and on very small waves. So I was always at a disadvantage in small-wave competitions.
'But I turned that around in my head, by becoming more powerful, more aggressive, and when it comes to big waves, I think being bigger, stronger can be an advantage. At the same time someone a lot smaller than me can ride big waves.
We're all doing something, always busy doing things, but do we actually have a real connection?
'People might also assume I like cold-water swimming too. I actually find the cold a distraction. Not a good distraction. I'm not into any of that cold-water-dipping stuff. In the sea I'd always be layered up in wetsuits.
'Because I started big-wave surfing on my own, I've always been super-safety conscious. I know that might sound a bit contradictory, going out to big waves, but because I was starting out on these waves on my own, I knew I'd have to survive on my own.
'I always wear a thin flotation vest. Sometimes I'd wear two, maybe even three. So if I was knocked unconscious, or hurt, I could float, still get myself to shore. I always had a knife strapped to my leg, in case I got caught in something. A lot of that stuff was alien to big-wave surfing in the beginning.'
He has had his close-calls and huge highs over the years, first surfing Nazaré in Portugal in 2010, long before it became the global 70ft wave hotspot it is these days. He was there in 2011 when American surfer Garrett McNamara caught the biggest wave in the world at the time. In 2018 the Nazaré city lighthouse invited Mennie to hang one of his surfboards on their Surfer Wall of Fame.
There's really no money in surfing. It's not golf
A few years before, also at Mullaghmore, he came off his surfboard during a giant midwinter swell, cracking his helmet and leaving him in the water bleeding out of his ears and nose.
'And I still caught two more waves that day, just to make sure the fear of that didn't enter me in any way, or later creep through and bother me. It could have been another six months before I was in a swell like that, and you don't know how that would dwell on you.'
That cracked helmet is now on display at the Ulster Museum in Belfast, along with a replica of his surfboard.
He is aware of his good fortune to be making a living out of surfing and the sea. He runs The Surfer's House guest accommodation in Portrush, Co Antrim, and as well as writing – his nine books include memoirs about his big-wave surfing adventures, self-help books about controlling anxiety and overcoming fear, bereavement after the death of a parent, a surf progression journal and two illustrated books for children – has found work in acting and modelling, mostly around sea activities.
'There's really no money in surfing. It's not golf,' he says. 'I've always made my living around surfing, rather than surfing sponsorships. It's through media, film, books, speaking. So even though I'm more associated with the big-wave surfing thing, which just blew up for me, that's just a small part of it. It's always been the sea in general for me.'
Al Mennie at Downhill Hill Strand beach, near Coleraine. Photograph: Chris Maddaloni
Al Mennie at Downhill Hill Strand beach, near Coleraine. Photograph: Chris Maddaloni
He still surfs, but these days his focus is primarily on swimming at night. Perhaps he is seeking that same solitude he found in big-wave surfing, particularly since many of the best surfing spots in Ireland have become more popular and busier, but it's also about keeping his 'connection' with the sea as strong and as real as possible.
'I don't see that many people who have a real connection with something,' he says. 'We're all doing something, always busy doing things, but do we actually have a real connection?
'It started as a practical thing. I just needed to get back into the water. Then I started to really enjoy it. I liked having my senses restricted in that way. Because you have to rely on other senses, I started to see my world, the world I've known since I was a child, from a different perspective.
'Even things like feeling the water differently. Surfing is very visual. You're always noticing things around you. Movements are very prominent. As soon as you don't have your sight like that, sound becomes much louder. As soon as a wave breaks, you're wondering where is the next one. Because you can't see it. All that creates a very different awareness.
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'That's really what night swimming is about. It's not just about swimming in the dark, it's about seeing your life from a different perspective, exploring day-to-days things in a new way. And that can help you through your life, in other ways.'
Night Swimming is part memoir, part practical guide, 'perfect for wild swimmers who want to experience their favourite waterhole after sundown, as well as those wishing to deepen their nature connection'.
Night swimming certainly won't be for everyone, even the most confident swimmers, and there are obvious and tangible safety risks. There is a whole chapter in his book dedicated to safety.
'You shouldn't go swimming in the dark unless you're a very, very good swimmer. Very confident in the water, and [with] an intimate knowledge of where you are swimming.'
Every winter for the past five years, since he started going out in the water in the dark, Mennie has pledged to swim a kilometre every evening for 100 days for his
Swim through Darkness
campaign, which has raised about £28,000 for mental health charities in Northern Ireland, including Aware and Pieta House.
Night swimming has been a balm for his own mental health, he says. Looking back now, he realises there were times in his life when he was channelling some grief into the water.
Al Mennie. Photograph: Chris Maddaloni
In the book, he writes: 'The darkness I refer to in night swimming is very obviously the lack of light at night, but the metaphors that have evolved from my discovery of night swimming relate to many other parts of life. Sometimes we can be so deep in a dark phase of life that we are unaware of it ...
'It could be relationship issues, financial struggles, health concerns or simply confusion as to where we are in life at a particular moment. I think there are many more people in this world who feel lost and hopeless at times than we maybe realise. You must remember that no matter what you face, you are not alone, and others are also struggling to find light in their lives.'
With the Swim through Darkness campaign, he aims to raise awareness of depression and intergenerational trauma in Northern Ireland, a legacy from the Troubles. 'Hopefully in doing so I help someone to keep their head above water in dark times.'
Night swimming, for him, offers a 'release'. 'It's a kind of escape from some of the ordinary things in life,' he says. 'I think back to my first few times, out below the cliffs and temple at Castlerock, and above it the sky was almost pitch black. And it felt like those cliffs were holding back the world, and the sea and waves beyond that were a different world.
'Night swimming has introduced me to a world I have known all my life, but in a completely new and unique way. It removes distractions and allows me to connect with my world in a deeper way than ever before.'
Night Swimming: How to Swim Through the Darkness by Al Mennie is published by Watkins on August 19th.
almennie.me