STRANDHILL -- Forget the small seal, slick in the slow swell like the cormorant and you. Forget the sperm whale that swam through this bay only a week before to end its life in an estuary framed by green-studded hills.
When sea and the bottom beneath conspire to curl perfect surf, forget all in this offshore playground and cemetery of whales and crabs. It is your turn.
Stretch flat on the long board, chest taut, chin lifted high. Paddle. Arms churning, lungs gasping, all in a rush as the board accelerates, the wave breaks and then . . .
You will forget, too, that thick-furred dogs walk the beach alongside lilt-tongued locals dressed in wool and Gore-Tex , and that mist sits low upon them. You will forget because when the surf comes in, which is nearly always, and the wind dies, which is often enough, the west coast of this northern island is a better place than most in the world to ride a wave.
For an American come here, whether first-time tourist or visitor in a land of aunts and ancestors, turning from tufted fields toward cold surf may seem a mistake. This place, where peat and pints have long warmed souls against soft weather, is better known for indoor pursuits. Sitting on a stool, the only threat of getting wet comes from a spilled Guinness, and that is warm.
But as the poet Yeats, who once drew inspiration from Knocknarea , a mountain rising east of the Strandhill surf, wrote: "Chaunt in his ear delusions magical / That he may fight the horses of the sea."
In recent years, Yeats's compatriots have answered the call in decidedly modern fashion, catching a surfing wave that has risen high and broken cleanly with the booming Irish economy.
Just listen to Tom Buckley , who opened Lahinch Surf Shop in County Clare in 1989.
"There was a time when you saw anybody with a surfboard on their car anywhere in Ireland, and you'd know who it was," Buckley said. "Now I can go out here in the middle of November, in the middle of the week, and see a hundred people and not know any of them."
The surf at Lahinch, like many good spots in Ireland, is within a few big breaking waves of world-class golf. Sandy terrain onshore makes for top-notch links courses; the conditions offshore, beginning with low-pressure systems 1,000 miles and more to the west, can make Irish surfing, as some in the sport like to say, "epic."
"You've got a constant swell machine. The Atlantic is always grinding away," said Gavin Gallagher , 26, who after a decade of surfing is filming a documentary about the Irish scene.
"But the thing you battle with is the wind. When it dies, or it goes offshore, it's just perfect."
So after the short hop across the grinding Atlantic -- five hours in a plane can get a person from Logan to Shannon -- turn back to meet the invulnerable tides, if not the horses of the sea.
But come prepared.
"Any fool can be cold," Gallagher said. "You've got to invest in a good wet suit."
The best surfing comes with bigger swells that arrive in autumn and continue through spring. On a Tuesday morning in late September, a porpoise crested the ocean's black lid a few hundred yards off Strandhill Beach . The beach is posted as dangerous for walking, and swimming is prohibited. But anyone with a surfboard can paddle into what is considered some of the most consistent surf in the nation.
A friend and I had arrived the afternoon before and found a dead calm sea. Tom Hickey , a longtime resident who first surfed in 1970 and now runs Perfect Day Surf Shop & School , pulled alongside us in the parking lot.
"I've come to give you the bad news," he said.
That afternoon was indeed better for golf, the nearby links of Strandhill Golf Club warmed with sun and gentle breeze.
So we stood and stared at the stretch of sand and the wide arc of Sligo Bay . Hickey described what we hoped, the next day, would prove an active training ground.
"Worldwide, Strandhill is as good a beach break as you'll get," he told us. "It's a multiple break. Any kind of swell in the Atlantic finds its way here."
The surge ends in places like nearby Easkey, with a nice right-hand break, and Bundoran , up the road in County Donegal. There surfers turn out for a dependable wave called The Peak.
"Very crowded, very aggressive," Hickey said.
Hickey showed us to Celtic Seaweed Baths , where a bathtub of seaweed, harvested off a point at the southern end of the bay, repaired the damage of a red-eye flight.
We played 10 holes at Strandhill, including the seventh, a tidy par 4 that paralleled the still-calm sea, and met Hickey early the next morning.
He described a St. Stephen's Day years earlier when he and some friends braved late December chill to catch perfect surf at Strandhill.
"We're sitting out there freezing cold, in driving hail, and the surf is lovely," Hickey said. "Some guys come down on number 7 with golf clubs and my friend looks at me and says, 'Geez, can you imagine playing golf on a day like this?' "
Hickey set us up with 3-millimeter-thick wet suits and long foam beginner boards. The water temperature was in the mid-50s, the air about the same. The swell had begun during the night and within hours would grow steady and strong.
For that early hour and more we had the beach to ourselves, Hickey standing shoulder deep in the bay to point our boards ashore, then pushing us to catch waves that crested two feet high. Then we went it alone, eyes on the Atlantic for each successive set of waves, when we would turn and race with tired arms. The battle went on: paddle fast, then -- pop! -- spring up, feet set, arms out and, most often, a tail-over-chin spin of surf and sand. The seal got curious, and then was gone.
It is relative newcomers, who benefit from a steadier supply of cheaper boards and better wet suits in recent years, who make up most of the surfers at Lahinch, Strandhill, Bundoran , and other established spots on good days.
More hard-core veterans rely on informal networks -- one surfer checking Internet weather reports, another on a bluff scanning the sea, another collecting reports from friends -- to track the convergence of rising surf and dying wind from Cape Clear to Fair Head.
"If you want to catch the best waves in Ireland, you have to travel, to understand the weather charts, and be able to move fast," Gallagher said.
"You end up living in a van for three days beside a reef."
Many watch closely the sea off Mullaghmore Head , in County Donegal , where a left-hand break over shallow rock can bring a 20-foot swell. But no wave in Ireland, or perhaps the world can match the perfection of Aill na Serracht .
Consider first that the wave so called breaks beneath the Cliffs of Moher , 700 feet of rock atop which kings and craftsmen surveyed the sea for centuries. Consider too that the wave rises so fast and big, 35 feet high, and nearly as wide, that a surfer needs a Jet Ski tow to begin to catch a ride.
"It is like entering another portal," said John McCarthy , owner of Lahinch Surf School . "You can't see any chimneys, no buildings. All you see is the cliffs."
Last year, McCarthy and two others rode the wave for what is thought to be the first time. Al Mackinnon , a seasoned surf photographer , put it in Hollywood terms.
"Everything is 'Lord of the Rings'-esque," Mackinnon said. "It's just a perfect big wave."
So whether riding awesome Aill na Serracht, or the dependable breaks at Strandhill, it is good not to be in a Beach Boys land of surf and sun, but in Ireland. Because as the folks at Guinness might say, the surf is just, after all, the storm before the calm, when you strip off the wet suit, sit in a seaweed bath, and head to the pub for a replenishing pint.
There in your sheltered seat, you can be sure of this: Tomorrow the swell may rise, the wind may die , and perfect waves may break. Before it all, no matter what, there will be pork for breakfast.
Contact Tom Haines at thaines@globe.com . 
