A personal account of inis oírr

When I started writing this piece I suddenly knew I would never, ever be

able to do this project justice. How could I be able to translate the laughter

and jokes or the kindness of the people of Inis Oírr on to a sheet of paper.

It’s a shame but I can’t put a feeling into words not least in print, however

here it goes.

First of all thank you to the people of Inis Oírr and the folks at Drop

Everything. What can I say other than it takes a village or in this case an

entire island. You undeniably took us in like a little family and you will

remain in our hearts forever ! You gave us food , accomodation , support ,

advice and helped us with everything you had. Anything we could ever

have asked for was dug out of the attic along with the odd box of screws

from the back of your sheds. From sandwiches to sun cream you treated

us like your own so thank you, again.

It’s easy enough to build a ramp or at least it’s not rocket science until you

throw in a few external factors like all Island power cuts or gale force

winds. On the first day thank God we had Mark on hand , with all the

transitions cut we moved straight onto screwing the framework together.

Every job was a two man job considering you couldn’t carry a sheet of ply

very far without getting blown into the Atlantic and I think along with a

shortage of power drills we began to wonder if we’d have everything

finished for launch day, but we decided we hadn’t much choice. We put

the heads down, backs to the sea everyone soldiered on whilst

occasionally singing along to a playlist of Dylan’s sad-core, country, rock

anthems.

This is pretty much how every day went only the backdrop was constantly

changing. The glittering sea sometimes turning hard and grey in the space

of an hour. The bright blue sky which had a dangerous habit of turning to

rolling, thunderous clouds whenever we weren’t quite looking. However,

whatever weather blew our way our star helpers and the most important

part of the project, the young skaters of Inis Oírr were always on hand to

help us transport wood or hide pieces of the ramp from the rain. They

hung out and did their homework and lifted our spirits, little did they know

but watching them bomb hills while dodging horses, cars and tourists kind

of reminded us why we were part of the project. In the matter of a few

days we were all gathered around the ramp again. Locals , Drop

Everything goers and our rag tag little group all stood watching the sun

slip into the sea while the kids got to the serious business of learning to

drop in. In the space of an hour everyone was dropping in holding Dyl and

Phili’s hands. Then another few days go by and everyone’s dropping in

unaided, I even spotted a few rock fakies here and there.

That puts an end to our trip. Forgive me but I have to shine a little light on

the boys who made it all possible really : Stuart Callan, Dylan Quinn, Mark

Foran, Pete Buckley, Cian Eades, Johnny Lyons. Between pints and darts

you all did amazing work and I couldn’t have asked for better people to be

a part of this with. Phili, you held it all together. No one will ever really

know how much work you actually did. You were the first up every

morning and the last to sit down every night. None of this could have

happened without you. Thank you to Mary at Drop Everything and

everyone who came down to the ramp ready to get stuck in. To the

parents , you guys are the coolest ever, thank you so much for everything.

Last but not least to the kids, thank you for taking me skating with you

everyday and for reminding my why skating is fun again. You guys are

some of the coolest, gnarliest skaters I know and I miss you already! I

hope I’ll be back soon.

And with that I can’t really say anything else other than “ Grá mór and

more grá!”

Lena.