Flagtown

This weekend gone I found myself Northbound in a people carrier full of Bray fiends as we trekked ahead for the annual Irish Skater of the Year jam in Belfast's St Anne's cathedral plaza.
The trip was to have duel purpose for me as it happened to coincide with a planned filming trip for my new follow up video to the 'scrum tilly.  Lucky for me the weather played ball for both events, stokeage!

On the way up we took a brief stop to check out this amazing egg shaped spot we'd been told about, quite obscure, very rad and tonnes of fun! I couldn't believe we had such a spot of epic radness in this country and I proceeded to work up a fierce sweat in no time. I heard Conhuir frontside ground the over vert bits on the outside a while back...how?? Jer and Al reached rad heights on some pumpers and we eventually trekked on to Northern Ireland's capital to watch young Denis Lynn talk shit and rip his way to the ISOTY title! Well played, could not have happened to a cheekier little fugger!

Bananarama! Apres ISOTY I found myself in the company of local lens man and all around solid dude Big Stu! Stu was the original inspiration for this new project as his positive attitude and original approach to his environment struck me as something that really needed to be documented, there's enough bland run of the mill shit being spewed out each day in the realm of skateboarding, I'm glad to see someone holding it down and pursuing his own course of truly inspiring snaps..and eating mighty healthily while at it.

Pinky was in the house (literally), look at those golden locks! Worthy of stealing any bears porridge. Mr. Pinkington also used those hefty bangs to propel himself into an aerial maneuver for my viewing pleasure, nice wan man!

We set out on a sunny Sunday mission, 3 deep with Stu, Conhuir Lynn and myself. En route to the first spot we ran into James Black, skating on his own for the love, great to see! So James joined us and we got busy quick.

Here's Stu yoga-flying himself for Conhuir's hefty snappage at the second spot

Third spot switch nasal attack, on point photography, Big Stu better watch the fug out!

We hit a rake of spots throughout the afternoon. Conhuir was really chomping at the bit, the change in this dude in the last couple of months is immense! I had to keep up with my clickity old cameras as he banged out epic fancy footwork at a tonne of truly girtty grimy spots.  Was stoked to film skating of such a buttery level in the context of such a grimy old city, can't wait to get the stuff back from the lab!

A rad day at the office, Big Stu at the helm with multiple buttery negs under his belt.

Whut?!

Ain't no thang! Take a bow Mr. Lynn, well played for a hairy hobbit.

I was initially dreading the long aul coach trip back to Bray, but with a belly full of fish and chips and many exposed cartridges of super 8 goodness in the bag my mood was mellow and the journey was easy. I snapped this pic of a flag draped bonfire on the way out of the city- an ever present reminder of the tit-fot-tat antagonistic sectarian shit that is still alive and well in this city.  The context of this negativity only goes to give extra shine to efforts of all the lads this weekend, truly making lemonage out of their sour lemons. These issues will be touched on in Big Stu's section of the video, but you'll just have to wait the beautiful collection of ghetto grimness that he has been steadily building over the past few months. Thanks to all involved for a very rad weekend!