Frazer, Robbie, Dave Wilson, Niall Pearce, Sheila met us in Ireland.

In between drinking Guinness we actually managed to get a little paddling done this time. Sheila had heard about a kayak festival over New Year in Glenbeigh, County Kerry which was supposed to be a laugh, so we thought we should turn up. About 200 paddlers were present, mostly from big Uni clubs. Dublin had well over 50 members present.

As far as river paddling goes things pretty much confirmed our expectations. Irish rivers are ditches. Don't bother going unless it's spate. We paddled the Caragh which the guide describes as 'possibly the best white water river in Ireland' and claims is 'big volume'. Actually the 4km section contains 3km of flat water and two 8ft rocky slides that would require 40cumecs to make them fun. When we ran it there was less than 10cumecs and the banks wouldn't take much more. Ditch with long flat stretches.

Surfing is another matter. We surfed Lehinch which was messy and entertaining at about 4ft. Rossbeigh beach had excellent clean fun 2-3ft surf. We also inspected St Finians beach south of Glenbeigh. At least 6ft crashing onto large pointy rocks. You want low tide and no surf anywhere else really.

General standard and experience of the paddlers we met surprised both myself and Robbie. No-one we met had been to the Alps, the best we got was someone who had 'been to Wales when there wasn't any water and was thinking about Scotland next time'. Of the 60-odd paddlers on Rossbeigh beach Robbie was in a league of his own, handsurfing for 20 minutes to and from the beach in what we were assured was '8 to 10 feet' of surf. All river info is then obviously suspect with large bollocks factors to be applied at all times. No-one would even try to estimate good volumes on named rivers and surf heights have to be divided by about 4. With these provisos we were assured that both the Flesk and the Clare Glens provide excellent grade 4 water given lots of rain.

But you don't really go to Ireland for the paddling. The piss-ups were superb with copious amounts of alcohol consumed by all. You can't drink too much Guinness (apparently). The atmosphere over New Year was amazing, which even our team rendition of 'Ilkley Moor Bah Tat' failed to dampen. If anyone fancies a change from the usual Scottish celebration then I can thoroughly recommend the Glenbeigh Festival. Its expensive but you're guaranteed a pint after 2pm.

Frazer Pearce, F.R.Pearce@durham.ac.uk 20-Jun-95