Lahinch Strand faces straight into the Atlantic on the Clare coast. Sand, left and right, workable at every stage of the tide, on a westerly swell with a north-easterly offshore, and it is the most approachable wave in the country.
April is its best month, and the split is Ireland in miniature: ten clean days out of thirty, nineteen blown out, one or two too small. One or two too small means the swell is a given. Nineteen windy days means the trip is decided by a forecast, not by a season.
Rocks and rips are both here. Gentlest in Ireland is not gentle: the water is cold all year, a thick wetsuit tires you faster, and the rips therefore matter more than they would further south. That is why people surf here with a guide, including people who can already surf.
Spot sheet
- Level
- Beginner, Intermediate
- Wave
- Left and right
- Bottom
- Sand
- Swell window
- WSW – WNW
- Ideal wind
- NE
- How often it works
- Consistent
- Crowd
- ●●●●○
- Danger
- ●●●○○
A month in figures
In April, the month the forecast guides single out for this coast:
Shares of the month, from the published forecast statistics. The model reads a grid, so neighbouring breaks share a figure: this describes a stretch of coast, not this wave on its own. The other eleven months are not published.
What to watch for
- Rocks
- Rips and undertow
Technical figures read off published surf guides. Where two disagree, the sheet says so.