Irish ingenuity behind world of modern surfing

LONDON - It started as the sport of Hawaiian kings, on the clement shores of the paradise islands.

But now claims are emerging that the origins of modern surfing can be traced to the far-from-sunkissed island of Ireland.

Surfers from California to Cornwall owe a debt to George Freeth, the son of an Irish immigrant from Ulster who arrived in Hawaii at the turn of the century. According to the film Waveriders, to be released next month, the young Freeth's Hawaiian uncle gave him a traditional board - a massive, solid wood plank that was 6m-tall and weighed 90kg. In a stroke of inspiration, the Irishman decided to make it smaller.

He soon became well known in Hawaii as the eccentric, pale-skinned man in the water with the small board. He even taught the novelist Jack London to surf from the beach in front of a hotel in Waikiki.

In 1907, Freeth was invited to California to demonstrate surfing: posters were put up around Los Angeles advertising a man who could walk on water. It was the start of the west coast's love affair with surfing. Freeth died in 1919 at 35.

The film, narrated by the Irish actor Cillian Murphy, traces the history of surfing's connection with Ireland from George Freeth to the present day.

- INDEPENDENT