LAHINCH Surf Shop is oldest dedicated surf shop in Ireland, catering to all your surfing equipment, accessories and surfing needs.
Originally established by Tom Buckley and his wife Rosemary in 1989, their daughter Eileesh now runs the successful business on the promenade since Tom’s passing 13 years ago.
The Lahinch native says that the surfing scene has continued to expand over the last number of years. “It’s gotten a lot bigger. The local club has over 100 kids getting coached on a Sunday morning for six weeks in the autumn once a week. We also deal a lot with the surf lifesaving community and the water safety crowd”, she explains.
The local surfing community continues to benefit from international visitors to the area, something which Eileesh and her business have picked up on as it helps to raise their profile through social media exposure.
“Yesterday, two different Americans came in saying they had their own gear with them. One of them was from Florida and the other guy was from Virginia, which would be much warmer water temperatures than here. It has to be good waves before they’ll brave the colder temperatures”, she notes.
While the business and wider surfing community continue to grow, operating in Lahinch does not come without challenges. The beach recently lost its blue flag status due to wastewater treatment issues and Eileesh says its hard to know what effect this will have on the area going forward.
“We’ve all known that there’s been an issue because the council only test the water once a week. There’s a lot of runoff and we don’t have a proper treatment plant for Lahinch and Ennistymon. There is a plan to build a brand new one, but apparently that’s been held up. That does need to be addressed pretty quickly because the population has grown considerably”, the business owner explains.
Parking charges have also become a key issue for retailers in the town. “We do not want the council to do any more charges on parking because nowhere else along the coast of the country, to best of my knowledge, charges parking up to 7.00 p.m. in the evening and through the winter”, Eileesh points out.
Lahinch Surf Shop is continuing to thrive despite these challenges however as Eileesh and the surf community look forward to another busy summer ahead.
The shop has become popular with world famous international surfers in recent years, including Olympian Leonardo Fioravanti, with one of his surfboards now hanging on the shop’s wall. Eileesh explains the connection, saying “His dad supplies a lot of our surfboards that we sell. The dad has told us if anyone wants to buy it, it’s €1200. Leo doesn’t know that he said that”, she jokes.
