Richard Fitzgerald

Richie Fitzgerald was born and raised in Bundoran, County Donegal, an area renowned for world class cold water waves. Having represented Ireland at both World and European Championships, Richie now concentrates on big wave surfing and owning and managing Ireland’s first intermediate/advanced surf coaching academy.

Richie has been a regular in the world wide surfing media, both appearing in and writing articles. He starred along side Gabe Davies in Irish surf film EYE OF THE STORM which was highly acclaimed and also appeared alongside the Malloy Brothers in the surfing documentary, STEP INTO LIQUID where he is featured devoting his time to the cross border integration scheme that attempts to integrate children from the North and South of Ireland through surfing. He was then one of the main characters of the Irish film WAVERIDERS, which tracked the birth of modern surfing to Irish roots and Richie himself starred at the end riding one of the biggest swells ever to hit the north west of Europe.

Richie focuses day to day life in the summer on running his business and in the winter on surfing big waves and is a great ambassador for the sport and Ireland. www.surfworld.ie

Image: Kathrin Baumbach (www.kathrinbaumbach.com)