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- It had sort of an underground thing to it.

The dropouts all skateboarded.

- In Dublin it was very much like a minority thing.

And there was really, it was definitely a subculture.

- We just didn't do what normal people at the time did.

- It's always been that way, you're not supposed to do it.

You're not supposed to be here.

- I don't know if anyone would get that if they weren't

really, like, totally involved with skateboarding.

- Anywhere we went at the time, it was obvious that we

were not the same or we didn't really belong

in the mainstream.

- They call it a sport now where years ago it wasn't

a sport it was just a youth culture in a sense.

- No one really can say where it started or when it started.

I always thought it was in the '50s and it got really

popular in the mid-'60s and when I was born, I was born

in 1965, Life magazine had Patty McGee doing the handstand

that was the month I was born, '65.

And it said the craze and menace of skateboards, is what

the title was on the cover of Life magazine.

My name's Todd Huber, I'm 47 years old, I'm the co-owner

and one of the founders of Skatelab.

Skatelab is an indoor skateboard park and a skateboarding

museum as well as the official home to the

Skateboarding Hall of Fame.

Skateboarding started here in California.

There's different theories.

A lot of people say, surfers invented skateboarding

when there was no surf and they wanted to keep surfing

so they would surf on the sidewalk.

But I like to say that us kids that lived

in the valley invented skateboarding

because we weren't able to go surfing.

Surf or not, if you're like 10 and you live in Simi Valley

which is a half an hour away from the beach, you want

to surf, what's the next best thing?

Get on a skateboard.

We grew up skating my whole life.

But again, a lot of people think it was a beach thing,

started at the beach.

I know that it was going on all over California in the

early '60s, late '50s.

- The origins of pool skating was based in surfing.

And around the time that skateboarding started getting

developed there were a group of surfers in southern

California that found a way to emulate wave riding

through empty swimming pools.

- So there's empty pools everywhere because it's so hot

in the summer, everyone's got a pool.

But if half the people weren't bothering to fill them

that's like a dream come true.

And I think it was just sort of a natural progression.

You looked at the pool and was like,

woah, that looks pretty fun.

We did it, my neighbors moved out and we drained their pool.

Like, we just turned on the pump and drained their pool

because it had a for sale sign.

We skated that pool all summer long.

But when I was a kid in the '70s we got to skate pools,

it was awesome.

- And right around that time there's a big drought

in California so all these back yard swimming pools

were empty because of the drought.

And so, they just sort of figured out how to hit the

walls they way they would the waves.

And by the time I discovered skateboarding, they'd

already figured out how to get airborne.

And so I was excited by that prospect right away.

- More of a culture over there in California, you know,

an accepted culture, where as here you're sort of,

it's not normal you know.

Dublin in the 1980s was so far

from the origins of skateboarding.

- Here's a good example, like this would be the front

of the roller skate and this is the back and they flattened

this but this was like a heel cup.

See what I'm talking about?

It had piece of leather that went through it.

I have the skates actually.

They flattened that heel cup and then this guy he named his.

He called it the Tiki II.

So I bet his sister, or whatever, had the Tiki I.

Like some dad might've made this for his two kids for

Christmas and they broke their arm and their mom's like

what are you doing?

That is so dangerous and then they threw it in the closet

and I bought it like 40 years later.

Again this is a roller skate cut in half.

You can see the jagged cut.

You know what I mean, it's not like it was a machine,

some dude just cut it.

His name started with a G.

Lot of times they personalized it.

That's a cool one.

I like the homemade ones, to me that's folk art.

Somebody took the time to make those.

- They tell stories about, you know, the old days where

you used to get a two by four and nail a roller skate.

We actually did that.

My first skateboard was a roller skate, cut in two

because I remember as a very young kid my father bought me

a pair of these strap on skates that you could adjust.

You'd slip them on over your shoes.

The funny was when people talk about that, it was true.

It did actually happen.

So, that's where I started.

How fast I could go down a hill.

- It was looked at as a really dangerous thing.

- Oh, wow!

- And especially with the horrible equipment, I think it

really was and I think a lot of people got hurt.

And so it didn't take that long for parents to not really

be into it.

And they would take the boards and throw them in the

basement or hide them from the kids.

The last thing they wanted to have to do is go

to the ambulance.

- Even though I was kind of small for my age when I

was younger, I did daredevil things and I liked jumping

off the high dive and I liked doing all that kind of stuff.

So, when I saw skateboarding I was like, yes!

There's a way to fly and do acrobatic things and aerials.

And I was drawn to it immediately.

- Partly it got that tag because in the beginning the gear

wasn't very skateable.

It was fun to do no matter if it was skateable,

but it just, it wasn't very skateable.

So you could lose interest quick and kids were getting hurt.

So I just think it eventually, thank god, it evolved

into something that was a lot safer and funner.

They invented the urethane wheel.

It's hard to see but this the old urethane wheel.

And it was rubber and it opened up a whole world because

they said that rocks and cracks and stuff in the road,

what was the main cause of people getting hurt and that

made it a lot easier to absorb the bumps and go over

the cracks and handle the rocks.

I think that was a huge turn and once that happened

then they started, the boards got more skateable,

they started getting wider, the grip tape got better,

the bearings got better.

Everything got better.

So as the boards got better, so did the riders.

- Skating is exhilarating.

It's very creative.

It's very spontaneous.

It can give you a sense of self-confidence that perhaps

you haven't found elsewhere because it's all about your

own motivation and your own challenges in overcoming those.

And it's constantly evolving.

The thing I love about skating is that there is always

something new to learn, you can't do everything.

There's always some new level to reach or some new technique

or something to improve on.

I started skating because my older brother was doing it

a little bit.

He was a surfer and he would skate when the waves were flat.

Skateboarding was just sort of coming into the main,

I don't want to say mainstream, but it was just

starting to happen.

And then I noticed that some of my friends were skating

around the neighborhood.

And I started using my brother's old board to join them.

And I didn't really, it wasn't like, it wasn't an epiphany

or anything that I had when I started skating.

I just liked it.

I like the motion and the freedom of it.

- I would've initially got into it through, there was

a guy on my row, who would have gotten a board probably

around 1987 or 1988 when it got really big.

Like when, I think it was really small up til then.

And then it went through a phase where it seemed like

everyone got really into it.

And there was loads of guys used to have jump ramps.

And I used to bring them down to, it was Quinsworths

and Choiropac down in Blanchardstown.

So there used to be guys down there and that was where

I first ever witnessed a skateboarder in real life.

But up until then it would have been Back to the Future.

- It was around that time that some of my friends were

influenced by Back to the Future and I think that's why

they probably spent three or four months trying to learn

how to jump over a two by four on a proper board.

- I had a paper route of sorts and I wanted to get

a skateboard so I fucking made one like every other kid did

because you could buy them.

And I went down do my paper run around Sewards Village

on it and went into the dentist's cause I used to

sell the newspaper to her everyday and she one day

just called me in, she says I had this in the garage.

She gave me this fiberglass board.

- I had a cousin who got John Rider's Guide for Male

and came up to our house few weeks in the summer as the

cousins come up and for some reason just when he got

there our local post office got the polyprop plastic

skateboards in.

So John had a few bobs, we bought two skateboards

and straight down to Bushy Park.

I spent, however long it took to actually get from the top

of the hill to bottom of the hill and that was me starting

skating and that was it.

It didn't continue all the way because it did officially

kind of die, the fad was gone.

There was nowhere to skate obviously was the key thing.

So I kind of got into doing other things, messing around

on bikes and what not.

- Probably about a year after I started skating, I went

to the skate park and saw, I saw people flying out of

swimming pools and that was the moment for me.

That was when I knew I was going to do everything I could

to figure out how to do that.

How to fly.

- I always just had a board lying around but then I got

into BMX bikes and all that kind of thing.

I went off to New York and I couldn't bring my bikes,

had my skateboard.

Saw guys skating in Madison Square Gardens and stuff

and oddly enough onto walls about that high.

And that's 1985 or something like that and I was like,

fuck the bike and away I go you know?

- I really started skateboarding when I was quite young,

probably six, seven or eight, just on plastic '70s boards,

what were called poly props, polypropylene boards.

And I, one of my first bikes was real American

kind of Schwinn stingray bike.

Long saddle, big V bars and I used to swap it

with a friend of mine for a go with his skateboard.

And we'd just got around the state jumping off

curbs and stuff.

- Ahh, first board was literally little bit bigger than

a two by four and with a roller skate hack sawed in two.

I spotted this roller skate in my neighbor's back yard

and there was some girls living beside me and it was just

getting rusted so I decided to jump the wall one day

and hit a hack saw to it.

And just nailed it to the front of the board, the back

of the board and just started bombing hills near my house.

- Christmas 1985, I got my own board.

So that was a toy shop purchase.

We had no idea there was any difference between a board

purchased from a toy shop and a board purchased from

a skate shop.

- Heidi Kelly had a sport shop in Sewardson, he got in

these big fat new looking skateboards.

They were the business so I bought one, started skating

and eventually found out about Clive up in Hill Street.

Popped in there and realized what I was skating was shit.

And I got a flex board off of Clive and I pretty much spent

every single day at his place.

In the shop, skating his ramps and that's where it all

kind of started you know?

- My brother Clive had a bicycle shop in Hill Street

and he used to sell BMX and stuff like that.

So we used to race BMX's.

- Started back in 1978, up in Hill Street.

At the time I was doing a bit of BMX stuff.

I was probably one of the only shops you could actually

buy anything decent if you're into BMX.

And skateboarding had been around prior to that but it

had become forgotten about, actually.

It was sort of, it was starting reappear in some of the

magazines, mostly BMX magazines you'd see the odd picture

of a skateboard.

But skateboards since we'd last seen them had changed.

- There was a magazine at the time called Raz and that was

a mag coming out of London and if you could get that.

You could get that in Esses' but I remember the first issue

I got it had a part of the magazine would have

like a mail order things.

So this was before the internet.

So there'd be all these pages where I would list all

the new boards that they had and all the runners they had,

and the wheels and stuff.

And Clive's, had a tiny little ad in that.

I remember cutting the ad out and cello-taping that

to the bottom of my board just because I couldn't

afford any skate stickers and I remember thinking

this makes me part of the gang.

I've got a Clive sticker.

- So one of the lads got a board and another one of us

got a board so then I'd say from the kind of mid-'80s

onwards was skating proper.

And that was kind of where Clive's came in and all that.

- In Dublin, it was very much, it was a minority thing.

It was definitely a sub-culture.

And I think if you saw someone in town who had like

ollie marks on the side of their shoes or who was wearing

a Santa Cruz t-shirt or something you would kind of give

them a nod or just chat to them.

- Back then, you might as well have been a leper.

I mean the looks you got and people would go out of their

way to have a go out you.

Either physically or verbally, like you'd see them out,

what you doing skateboarding?

You know, that's for kids.

Or you know even, I remember skating through town with

Johno and Peace and all the crew and guys be coming

trying to give you the elbow on the path.

Or going out in the road or trying to literally knock you

off your board.

It was like being an alien or something in Dublin.

You could skate down the street

and they would be like, oh bloody skateboarders.

- Then the security guards would come out and hassle us,

there was always the security guards after a certain

amount of time.

- Not even on Good Friday?

- It doesn't matter.

- Okay, literally one minute and we're out of here.

Guards are here in two minutes.

- In the '80s and in the early '90s it was kind of

looked down on.

But it just was, it was a core group of lads that were

hitting it up.

- And once in a while the cops would come chase you out

but they didn't, they'd tell you to leave it wasn't like

they were going to haul you in or whatever, unless you

maybe were damaging something but we were just skating.

That's the thing about skateboarding, you were just having

a good time and isn't that what you're supposed to do

when you are a kid?

You know, like, that's what you do when you're a kid

have a blast and that's what it is, it's a blast.

- Kind of draws a different kind of head.

Most of the lads weren't really into to team sports

or whatever and just more attracted to things like skating,

biking, blading, whatever you know?

So, I don't know, they're the sort of people I like

hanging out with.

Just doing something a little bit different from the norm.

- I think that we're just afraid of things,

something different, it's like people like to be safe in

their heads and if they see something new they're,

get rid of him.

I don't know, it's weird.

- Young lads are into football.

Not everybody's into football.

And generally you find people who like skateboarding

hate football.

- I think a lot of, there's a lot of similar sort of

a trait, if you like, in skating in that from my experience

most of the people who are into it aren't really the team

sports type people.

I went to a Christian Brother school, it was gah, it was

hurlin, it just didn't really hold any appeal for me.

So, where other lads would be off training and playing

matches and that, it was something to do.

Simple as that.

And as soon as there was a place where people could at least

meet, which was Clive's, and then from there go off on

a mission where you got to.

But as soon there was some sort of a central place

that meant it was something kind of permanent rather

than just this transitory, temporary thing.

- When I started skating, I did it at a time when it was

deemed really uncool.

It had come and gone.

So, basically since I was still skating, it was like,

you're still playing with that thing?

Are you serious?

It'd be like, you still do yo-yo's?

And so, I didn't care so much what my schoolmates thought

because I already knew that I loved it so much that

wasn't going to affect me.

And I played baseball and I played basketball and I did okay

but it wasn't something that I kept improving at.

- The reason why I got into skateboarding was when I was

really young in I think, first or second grade, we had

show and tell on Friday at school.

And my mom had bought me this little roller derby

skateboard, a little mustang, and I took it with me to

show and tell and the teacher was bummed.

It caused sort of a disturbance in the class.

Everyone wanted to try it and the teacher was all scared.

And she told me to never bring it back again, don't ever

bring it back in.

And ever since then it just sort of stuck.

Maybe that was what was cool about it.

When I saw everybody else really wish that they would have

brought that to show and tell something spoke to me

and like wow, it was pretty cool.

That's how it started for me and then I've gone on and off.

Once I got my driver's license I stopped skating

for a little while.

That always happens, girls and cars.

And then I got back into it after college.

- When I went skating, every time I went skating,

I learned something new.

Even if it was just some minor technique.

And I found this community of people at the skate park

that were very like minded but also had the same attitude

like fuck those guys, who cares what they think.

We love this.

And I really enjoyed that.

And I loved that we had this community we're sharing ideas,

we're trying to figure out how to do new things together.

Skating was so experimental then.

Anything went, whatever you could figure out that was new,

it was like, oh, there's a new thing.

You'd get to name it.

Maybe someone took a picture of it.

I think skating is hugely creative.

It is very much an art form.

- I think it's a real, sort of, physical art.

When you look at some of the pictures of Hasoi or Hawk

coming out of the ramps and you see them.

It's like a work of art.

It's like sculpture for a minute and then it's gone.

- In our day, the only way you could judge anyone's

prowess was through competition so that became the

sporting aspect of it.

Though sometimes those worlds clash where people say

it's not a sport.

Well, we compete in it, it's active, so yeah it's a sport.

- You could get a rule book.

This is the rule book and this is just a supplement.

It says interim rule book, official rule book will be

published in '66.

And this just tells you, this is the rules right here.

This entire content of the rule book remains the property

of the National Skateboarding Championships and no portion

of this rules may be reproduced without written permission.

They're done.

These are discount coupons but here's flatland, slalom.

These are the different types of competitions.

Downhill slalom.

It tells you how to set up the course.

It talks about, two seconds from the first marker,

knocks over, all the rules.

Trick riding, kick turn rates, total points scoring.

Hints.

So this was sort of what was going on in '65, which was

the year I was born.

So skateboarding, my parents weren't into it

when I was born, I think they were into school.

- Clive was always well into the BMX thing and for me it

was the bike shop first and gradually you started

getting skateboards in.

So I would have been aware of Hill Street from very,

probably from when I was 11 or 12 maybe.

- There's a thing in my family where basically we,

there's seven boys in my family and we always loved

things with wheels on them actually.

And that kind of came from my grandmother who was into

motorbikes and then my dad was into motorbikes.

And our whole family would be, well, out of the seven

brothers, six of us would be into bikes.

A few of us have raced bikes and stuff like that.

So we were always in, as kids growing up, we were always

into making things with wheels go-karts, scooters, whatever.

And because my dad sold bicycles and we would have had

lots to work with, lots of bits and pieces.

So, I would say that's where Clive's thing

with skateboarding came.

- Well, they kind of went hand in hand.

Anyone who is into BMX riding has a certain attitude.

There's a bit of risk in the sport.

It's an individual sport as well.

You can put your own mark on what you do.

Skateboarding's the very same.

And I suppose it was just a natural progression.

- The BMX magazine that started showing one or two pictures,

started showing towards the end, it was one or two pictures

pictures of BMX bikes and the rest of the magazine

became skateboarding.

You could see the pickup, the interest in it.

- Skating was coming up, a bike shop would carry a few

boards naturally and so on because it's kind of,

it all fits.

And then ultimately skating really took off so the bikes

went out the back door.

Boards came straight in the front.

- I'd always had an interest in skateboarding so it was

a natural progression to keep the skate shop going.

And I enjoyed myself.

I loved coming in to work on a Monday morning.

- Well, definitely the skate shops in the urban areas

are the places where everyone congregates and that's where

all the new, all the new ideas and all the new videos

and everything and the news is shared.

And so I think it's, yeah, I think it's hugely important.

I mean, obviously, it's hard to keep a brick and mortar

place going these days with the advent of the internet

and everything accessible elsewhere.

But it's definitely a great place to collect ideas

and usually the skate shops are the ones that are

growing the scene.

- We watched the videos up at Clive's.

We'd sit there for an hour or two and then we'd all go out

and try to recreate it ourselves.

Which didn't really happen too well but we tried.

- Usually the skate shops are the ones that are holding

the events, they're sponsoring the events that are putting

talented skaters on people's radar outside of their area.

And so, I think they're hugely important.

- This lad on my road, I can't remember his name,

but he was the first person I met who had a pro board.

So I remember kind of around that time asking him

where he got it and that's when he mentioned about

Clive's little skate shop down in Hill Street.

- I mean I can clearly remember as I got closer to Clive's

I could hear this very distinctive clack of skateboards.

And I didn't really know what to expect I just knew

that there was a skate shop there.

Kind of turned the corner at the top of Hill Street

to see this fairly substantial shop covered in graffiti

and dozens of skateboarders just rolling around out

the front of the shop.

- I felt at home, I felt freaked out first of all,

because there was lads there who kind of knew what they

what they were talking about and I had only ever

seen stuff in magazines.

And Clive being Clive, with a smoke hanging out go up

and his ways.

But, yeah, that didn't last too long.

Second or third time in there and you felt like it was home.

- You all have a nice day now, you here?

And you all come back again real soon.

- It was amazing scene to get into when it really

started kicking off.

And everyone used to meet up there and they started putting

ramps out the front.

It was just, it was like a biker gang or something.

- Size wise and by today's standards, it was a small place.

It was small but when you're a kid and you walk in

and all you see is just wall to wall skateboards, it's like

it's like Aladdin's cave.

It just seems huge.

- Going into the shop then, I mean, that was an experience

in itself because there was the vaguely intimidating factor

of actually getting to the place and then to kind of

walk into this shop that just seemed to be

full of crazy people.

- And the shop was kind of a focal point because it was

the only shop that stocked anything like that.

- I think the first time I went in there, I'd heard about

Clive's for years and years, but obviously I was only

an eight or nine year old kid so I couldn't really be

jumping on a bus into town.

But I used to just hear about it though the older lads

in our area of skaters and I think one of the first times

I went in there was with my confirmation money.

- I mean, I had no idea who was working there.

I had no idea what I was meant to ask for and I was

really aware of my cheap supermarket skateboard

under my arm.

It became fairly obvious who was working there when

Clive came out of the back room and there's this fairly

big guy, leather jacket, he kind of walks out, starts

cursing at everyone and yelling at everyone to get

the hell out of the shop, go out and skate, clear the place

so he can do a bit of work.

- Clive's the man really, you know what I mean, really

he's like, I don't know he's kind of like the surrogate

dad to a lot of the fuckin dysfunctional fuckers that

were around at the time.

- And in first place, I just want to say at this stage,

I did not judge, I had nothing to do with it.

Peter Rowen!

- It wasn't like it was a certain group of skateboarders

in the country who went there.

Every skateboarder in the country went there.

Because that was the only real shop.

Everyone just went there.

And I think it was cool.

It seemed to be like there was definitely a good sense

of community there and it was just really exciting.

The place, as I'm sure people have said,

it was a rough spot.

And I remember going there, the first few times I went there

on my own, just getting lost and ending up getting chased

out of the flats.

And just, you constantly see people running into the shop

who would have been chased in by heads outside trying

to start with them.

- I was slap bang in the middle between two blocks of flats.

There was Hill Street on one side and Hardwick Street

on the other.

And it would have been a hard neighborhood.

I mean back then it was pretty basic.

We didn't have much money, any of us.

Pretty rough.

A lot of rough heads around Hill Street from the flats

and pretty much most days you get hassled.

I remember one guy, the guy across from Clive,

he thought he was American, he had all the VA,

he looked like Clint Eastwood or something

or at least he thought he was.

He used to have all the VA cars, they were pretty cool.

Up at CLive's we'd be watching him every day and he'd go

up and down the horse.

But he'd always, he particularly didn't like me or Johno

so he was always having a go at me.

And I just used to stand there laughing and Johno'd be

laughing at him.

And he'd come up and give shakes but he never hit us.

But I think after a while he grew to like us.

Same with the guys in the flats.

But it was hard, Dublin was very hard then.

It wasn't, there was no flash cars or money around

like there is now.

- It's part of an older part of Dublin.

It was mostly just the local kids from the flats would

always give the skaters hassle.

- And I know they have horror stories where you go to

Ireland and Irish are gonna bash you in and what have you.

And I heard things of Hill Street and what have you where

kids have been robbed and what have you and I, I was just

a young nipper at the time as well.

So I was like, ohh, is it going to be alright

or is it going to be sketchy?

- Bleak for sure.

And even the setting of Clive's, where it was,

like Hill Street off the back of the garden, remembrance

kind of Belvedere direction.

It was just, it was a kip, it really was and I remember

even the first couple of times, I used to cycle in

and it is the old thing of you'd be coming around

the corner, you'd be pulling your socks up kind of thing.

Head down, don't make eye contact.

It was a rough gaffe, there's no two ways about it.

- Hill Street probably wasn't the best of all areas for

skateboarders to be skating in.

You know, you'd arrive with a new board and then you might

get your new board robbed from a few of the locals.

That was always a bit of a task getting up to Hill Street,

especially if you're a small kid.

I was probably 11, so wandering off to Hill Street

when you're 11 years old, 100 pounds in your pocket,

trying to get a new board and hope to god

you didn't get robbed.

- It's not a street you'd go up to with your wallet

in your pocket.

If you had money maybe put it in your sock.

We'd have lots of run ins with the locals and they,

there was always, like maybe for a month it might be cool

and then something would kick it off.

Some argument or something.

We've had bricks thrown at us and running after us with iron

bars and mad face offs with extremely aggressive locals.

So yeah, it wasn't the friendliest part of the city

to be skating in.

- And it was a bit mad alright.

You didn't need a helmet for falling off your board,

you needed a helmet to dodge the coal being thrown at you.

It was lethal up at Hill Street.

I can remember one day Clive having to do, half a dozen

runs up to Temple Street hospital.

Kids getting injured with these gangs from around the corner

throwing rocks and you name it at us.

We were complete weirdos as far as north inner city

Dublin people saw us, you know what I mean?

- Some of the kids used to have to come up Hill Street

or Parnell Square and come down Denmark Street to try

and find the shop so occasionally they were come running

in through the door being chased by a local mob.

People got used to that.

- Johno used to work at the shop so he was probably one

of the best skateboarders in Ireland at that stage.

So everyone knew Johno.

Same with Pete Rowen, Clive's brother.

And then a few of the other heads that were so young

at that time you probably wouldn't be allowed to hang

around with the older guys like you're just one of

their little kidla.

- Johno used to work for me years and years ago.

He was a young kid at the time.

And he was from the south side.

But he used to get a bit of stick from the locals and

he got a bit of a name for himself.

- You'd be trying to serve a customer and the kids would

be throwing cans in.

Going down to the end of the street one of the days,

I basically grabbed one of the kids and threw him

out of the door.

Next thing I know there's about 30, 40 lads with iron bars,

like all fucking 14 year olds or whatever come and chasing

all the skaters.

And there was more of us but all of the skaters booked off

down the road and there's like me and two of my friends

still here, defend ourselves with skateboards.

But it was pretty mad.

- He took off and I said to Johno you better go home

early because this could be trouble.

So Johno took off the rest of the afternoon and about

20 minutes later two men in their, I would say 50s,

walked into the shop.

One had a hammer in his hand and the other guy had a

crowbar and they had another kid in tow with them

and they were saying is that him, pointing at me.

And fortunately the kid said, no, no it was only a young lad

I don't see him.

And they inquired after Johno and I said I've never

seen him before.

That's sort of a memory that sticks.

Where I was almost killed.

- Check out my feet, then go to my board, then go to here.

Hi can I help you?

Johno was like, he was like a sort of 16 year old version

of Mike Tyson, you know?

- Johno was good at dealing with the security guards.

- Oh no!

- Would you guys get out of here please?

Get out of here.

You came close to crashing.

- How the fuck did I almost hit him?

Get your facts straight and get back to your fucking car.

- You get out of this area. - No.

What gives you the right to tell me?

- Because I pay taxes.

- So do I, so what?

Big fucking deal.

- You could cause an accident here.

- Oh fuck off.

- If you don't want, the police will get you, okay?

- I heard stories about Clive keeping a big bat under

the counter and I don't whether that's true or not but

that could've added to the mystery of it.

And that was part of it as well.

- I heard stories about him with his baseball bat

and stuff so I was like, I wonder if this bloke's going

to be like super gnarly but he was like the friendliest

down to earth bloke ever.

- So I know he used to keep a wooden night stick for

beating up the locals but he used to have a harpoon gun

on a nail and I used to ask him and say.

Cause as a kid I'm going, what are you going to do with

that you know?

I said would you shoot someone if someone came in

and tried to hold up the shop?

And he said, no, I'd let them get over the counter,

cause he kept the till in a room in the back.

So he'd say, no, no I'd let them get and empty the till.

He said what I'd do is just as they're climbing back

over the counter is I'd just unhook that and I'd shoot

them up the arse with it.

I think he wasn't messing either.

He would have wouldn't he?

- But the locals, when I moved in there first, used to try

and take advantage but they got to know me and I got to know

them so I didn't get a whole lot of trouble from them.

- What I thought when I was going there was I was thinking

it was gonna be even more underground and even more sketchy.

And the actual real vibe was, when I got there,

we got to Clive's shop or what have you and loads of kids.

All wanting to hang out and skate and it was totally

warm and welcoming.

Kind of like the first time I came to California.

I was like am I gonna get shot going to the shops?

It's not like that is it?

You experience it and you go alright there's sound

people here, there's sound people there,

there's sound people everywhere.

It's just who you choose to hang out with.

- Because I liked skateboarding myself I thought it was

great to see other people.

Because there were very few skateboarders in the old days,

in the early days.

So, as more kids started getting into it and not just kids,

I mean older guys as well, but as they started getting into

it it started to grow.

- We started off, we used to go to building sites, pinch

timber whatever we could get our hands on, go down to

what looked like abandoned piece of land and build

a half-pipe and so on.

Anything you wanted to skate was DIY because

it just didn't exist so, I mean I built so many ramps.

- There was kind of an outlaw feel in a way up at Clive's

because the cops would always been called around and tell

them to get the ramps in off the road and they'd be

telling them to ask the kids to stop skateboarding

on the Central Bank or whatever.

Clive puts some ramps and some grind bars and things

like that in front of the shop.

Now, Hill Street, it's quite a wide street but I mean he

didn't have a recessed shop or a patio or anything

like that, this was ramps just literally stuck out

onto the street.

- We used to see pictures in magazines and videos

and that and all the Americans had skateparks and ramps

and nobody here had anything really so I started

putting ramps together.

I used to make them so I could fit them in the shop

at night and when I opened in the morning I'd take them

out and assemble them.

I'd have to get in early to make sure I got at least

three parking spots in a row right outside the shop

because that's what it took for some of these ramps

to be set up.

I used to occasionally get in a bit of trouble from

the police saying you can't put ramps on the street

and I'd assure them I was going to take the ramps

in as soon as they were gone, which never happened.

So the ramps stayed there for quite a number of years.

Clive, he stuck two mini ramps beside the shop

so that was kind of a plus for going to Hill Street because

at least then you'd get a little skate in the ramps as well.

There wasn't many ramps back in the day.

So it was something new and it was something

different to skate.

- I remember those ramps beside the shop and you used to

have to go in to Clive's and I think pay like 50 fee

or something so you could go in and skate the ramp.

And they'd have these little stickers, like a fluorescent

sticker that they'd put on your truck and then you come out

of the shop and go around to the shed, kind of, where

the ramps were and I think you have to show someone

that you had the sticker and then they'd let

you in to skate.

- Next door to the shop there was a little old man

who used to make furniture and he had a premises,

which was basically just a tin roof, one story.

He was there for a good few years but when he moved out

I think he eventually died and his son took it for a while

but cleared this big, big shed out and I inquired

as to who was renting it and I ended up taking this place

as well and putting in mini ramps.

And these would have been, nobody, most of the kids

would never even see a mini ramp apart from a picture.

- Once Clive put the ramp in next door, then there was

a real reason to come there.

And you'd regularly see lads coming in school uniforms

and the bag would go behind Clive's counter and in they'd

go and they'd be at school.

- Sometimes they would take a day off school and leave

the school bag in the shop and disappear next door

for a couple of hours to skate on the mini ramp until

around about 4 o'clock when they were due home with their

school bag and off they went.

- There was a tiny little barn type building right next

to the shop and the ceiling was probably eight feet tall,

like your normal house.

So he built these miniature little half-pipes like the ones

we have here for the kids.

He built two of them and we used to go down and just session

all day, it was packed.

It was the only indoor place and apart from Clive's own

backyard ramp, it was the only place that skaters could

actually go and skate without getting busted by

a security guard or something.

- At one stage, I thought it was time to maybe do something

on a slightly bigger scale than just have ramps

outside the shop.

So there was a place in Dunleary, it was

the Top Hat Ballroom in fact I think it was Wally Wabits

then after that.

The Top Hat Ballroom had a lovely maple wooden floor

and a balcony viewing area and all that.

And it was only used on a Thursday night for bingo,

which was a terrible shame.

And I found the guy who owned it lived not too far away.

And I asked him would it be possible to maybe take it

on the weekends and put in skateboard ramps.

And he said, well, it's a maple floor and I said absolutely

perfect because that'd be a nice surface

for skateboarding on.

So he gave me the go ahead on that and I ended up

making bulliture ramps.

Basically we nailed them to the maple floor every Sunday.

But it wasn't being used for anything else so nobody

really minded.

And for quite some time I think, maybe twice a month,

the Top Hat was open for skateboarding.

Everybody paid, I think it was a pound at the time

to come in and skate.

And all those pounds went towards building new ramps.

It started to get bigger and bigger.

- It kind of just developed naturally,

what else could you do apart from Clives.

Like Clive would put on a Top Hat competition.

Like anything that was done was basically done by Clive.

Like the point dapo compettion and the Top Hats,

the Powell demonstrations and all that kind of thing.

Clive's responsible for all that.

Can we stop skating please?

Okay, Peter, do you hear that now?

There's no skating around upstairs.

No skating in the back area.

- In 1990, the Bones Brigade came over.

They were used to touring Europe and England and I don't

think Tony Hawk had ever heard of Ireland before.

I wouldn't have thought he knew where it was on the map.

- In the '80s the Bones Brigade was the sort of preeminent

or the premiere skate team consisting of guys like

Steve Caballero and Lance Mountain, Mike McGill,

Rodney Mullen, Tommy Guerrero, myself and then a whole

slew of amateurs and other pros that came in not long

after that were all very iconic in their own way.

And so, a lot of people were looking to us in terms of

innovation and for touring we were the go to team.

For the most part, I mean obviously there were other teams

Santa Cruz Vision and they all had some super good riders

as well but I think collectively ours was sort of the best.

I made contact with a few people in England

who I knew and said, look, you know, it'd be great if these

guys could come over.

They said well if you look after them for the weekend,

we'll send them over.

So I agreed to that and Tony Hawk and a few others

came over and we put on a big demo at the Top Hat.

- I suppose you could say to me it'd be like getting

Muhammad Ali over here to box, you know?

Like Tony Hawk is that kind of stature.

He's, I think Tony Hawk made skateboarding huge

and acceptable because he's such a good role model.

He had all the computer games, he made it acceptable for

kids to skate now.

So yeah, it'd be like Muhammed Ali coming to a small boxing

club in Dublin.

That's what it'd be like.

- Well, I remember, I remember our European tour vividly

because I mean that was the longest I'd ever been overseas.

I think we were gone for almost six weeks.

And so we were going all over Europe and then they said

yeah we want you to go to Ireland as well.

And we took a ferry which seemed like forever to me.

As a kid, not really being much of a world traveler,

understanding the layout of any of that area.

- The whole thing skating with Tony Hawk at the time,

that was brilliant.

Who was there?

It was Nicky Guerrero, Tony Hawk, Mike Manzoori,

and Bucky Lasek.

All still skating, it's rad you know?

It was great to go down there and skate at that event

because you were skating with real idols at the time so.

That was cool that Clive had managed to organize that

whole thing you know?

- When we would walk around, especially when we were near

the area of the shop, people would be scrambling

and recognizing us.

I mean I guess it'd be the same thing today but what

would happen is everyone's on their cell phones

and immediately there'd be a crowd.

So, I guess lucky for us or unfortunately for everyone

else they didn't really have that speed of information

at the time.

Obviously, the Irish skaters were very passionate

and you could tell there was a vibe just in terms of

non-skaters where things could get ugly because

you know we looked different.

I mean, anywhere we went at the time it was obvious

that we were not the same or we didn't really belong

in the mainstream scene.

And so, I remember feeling a bit uneasy walking around

but at the same time when the skaters would encounter us

they were like out of their minds excited.

- Shortly before opening time, I decided I'd have a look out

and see was there anybody there waiting to get in.

And as it ended up, there was a cue right down the road.

And I think there was about 700 or 800 people.

Now the Top Hat wasn't that big so it was

packed to capacity.

- I remember the crowd being super excited.

And for us that was a pretty big crowd but the fact that

they were kind of so close and on top of us and anything

we did they were stoked on.

And there's some places, I don't even know, I can't make

rhyme or reason why certain places go off and some don't

but on that tour we definitely did some demos

that just fell flat.

I mean we skated well but it was just like, eh, well, cool.

And in Ireland they were like we walked in

and they were like, yeah they're here and you do

a little ollie and it's like, ahhh!

And that's way more fun for us, not that we need or we're

looking for tons of praise all the time but it's way more

fun with people that excited.

Tony Hawk and the Bones were good.

They put on a great show.

- Biggest ramp we had in there due to size of storage

and that was a quarter pipe about five foot tall but he

managed to pull a 540 on it which is absolutely amazing.

- When I was 15, 16 the nearest park to us was Northampton.

We used to go over there with a friend and we'd get

the ferry over and spend four, five hours on the train,

stay up all night and arrive at the skate park

by eight o'clock in the morning.

And we'd stay for the weekend and then go home and that

was, that was our skate park even though it was in

a different country.

- I heard about Simon's skate park which is down in Sir John

Rogers and Skee and that would have been '92 to '93 even,

I don't even know if it lasted that long.

That was amazing.

- That was Simon and Paul Mckeen, opened that up,

that lasted for about two years.

They managed to open that on the back of a big squeeze

event, it was on down in the Point Depot I think in '92.

So I think skating looked trendy.

It was on the RTA we had a big ramp set up for the weekend

and I think it was a bit of grant aid coming in to

new businesses starting.

- Yeah, we had the Flip Guys which was at Death Box,

I think at the time, which are like

world famous skateboarders.

- That was actually, that was a really cool demo.

I don't even know if it was a demo really,

it was just like skating with the guys.

Which was rad about those days, the old Death Box days.

It wasn't like a set thing and there'd be someone on the

microphone going, okay and now this guy's dropping in.

It'd be like alright nice to meet you, let's go skating.

And that's good and that's probably hard to do nowadays with

all the skate nobbing and authorities and what have you.

So like in those times you could go and do that.

- Unfortunately, it just closed down.

Run into financial trouble.

The location wasn't great.

A lot of skaters got put off having to go to it because

you had to fight your way down the keys.

And you'd get all sorts of scumbags from that part

of town just, they'd corner you, there was no where to run.

So a lot of kids stopped actually going and that kind of

made life a little bit more difficult for Simon

with that park so it closed.

After that, the next park was my own, I opened a place

called Pipeline 2, up on Predominat street

and it lasted a good six months.

A great investment.

We had no plan information or any of that,

not that we cared.

We were closed down, we were ordered to close.

So we did that.

Went back to college to do a degree, thinking it'd be

good for my future.

Did a marketing degree, finished up really well, got a nice

two and one degree went back and built another skate park.

That was Rampant Ramp, did that away in Gallaher.

- Like I have a fond memory of skating down the street

in Ireland with all the Irish guys around and we were

just blasting down the street and we would hit spots

on the way to spots.

And they were like, no way, this is cool.

And I was like this is cool for me because I'm skating

new stuff I've never seen or been to.

So, yeah, that was an amazing time.

- All different corners of Ireland were coming down,

spending the weekend going skating.

Like you'd see 50, 60 skaters at a time going down

on Collins Street and going down to Baggot Street, going to

Central Bank, going around to all the different spots.

Starting at 10 o'clock, coming back at six.

Hang out for an hour, watch a video and then

go do it all again at night time.

- We were like the muskers of our generation, you know

what I mean, like we would get pinned up by loads of kids

and be signing everything.

It'd be like, I've got to try and practice, like you're not

giving me much of a chance here.

But they didn't care.

They would be like yeah man and that was our vibe too.

We would like yeah, you appreciate what we do, we appreciate

you appreciating us.

It was totally like that in Dublin.

It was amazing.

You can't not love the fact that someone's appreciating

what you're doing because if you are you're killing

yourself right there.

You're basically going, everywhere you go it's kind of

a family vibe.

I've always said you know it's possibly one of the only

sports where you could go and you're guaranteed to kip

on someone's sofa for free.

It's a welcoming thing like that.

- I think skating's one of those things, that once you've

got a skate board, like you've got friends everywhere.

Like you can sleep on someone's couch, it's a passport book.

- Yeah, Clive's was absolutely like that.

I guess for me, I'd never been to Ireland before so

I was expecting them to be a bit rougher.

But no, everyone there was super welcoming.

Clive was sound and everyone loved us coming out,

which was really flattering and nice.

So obviously that was reciprocated.

We loved the vibe back, that's what skating's like isn't it?

- At the back of Central Bank my dad was doing

a delivery and I remember again I saw somebody jump over

one of the shores and it turned out to be a few of the

local lads that I hung around with for years.

So, Central Bank was a huge influence on skateboarding

back in the day as well.

- Yeah, Central Bank.

Kind of mid-'80s, mid to sort of I'd say '86 to '87,

we used to skate in there.

And pretty much for a period of time, we were kind of

left to our own devices.

And there'd only be a couple, say Rog, Shaggy and meself,

there'd be a couple of lads skating and the worst

that would happen is a security guard would come out

and say, oh lads you're making a bit of noise there.

And we'd just go.

And when it was a little, small crew like that it was

no major drama, nobody got too pissed off about it.

But as skating definitely got more popular and then

Central Bank became a hangout spot, it was just, you could

see the security guards going, I'm not having this,

this is bullshit.

- I think we were just cruising the streets.

We were just chinin' it, you know what I mean?

Just like blasting down the streets, big posse.

I'm sure the locals were like what the hell's going on?

That's the more fun vibe that I remember

from being out there.

We went to one spot where I'm not sure if it's the ledge

over into the street gap and then there was some of a

start off in there and we got busted pretty quickly

so we got kicked out real quick.

So we didn't really get to skate it too much.

- There's four minutes left okay?

Four minutes and then we need to shut it down.

Ohhhh!

That is sick!

Here, let me see that again!

Ohh!

Show us there?

- Skating was getting busier and busier and busier

as a sport, there were so many newcomers, all the time.

I remember we'd meet up and we'd almost be whispering

to each other, we're going to Skees, you know the red bars.

So we had a name for every spot that we skated around town.

Red bars was called red bars because the bars we skated

were red, pretty creative bunch of individuals there

naming our spots.

But we used to have to whisper to each other where we're

going, go around the corner and boot it down the hill

so all the little, the little kids wouldn't follow us

because we used to get followed and it was like a train

going through town.

Central Bank kind of got shut down.

They started to put barriers up so we started to look

at other spots and then Baggot became literally the home

of skateboarding in Dublin for, I'd say,

a good eight, nine years.

Because we had good spots to skate, smooth surfaces

to skate we were able to progress on a daily basis as well.

- Baggot Street you could, you could make a film alone

about the stuff that happened on Baggot Street.

It was like the most amazing skate spot.

Like one of the most amazing European spots ever.

- Baggot Street is, has always been the hub of Irish

skateboarding, even now people would always love to

skate Baggot Street because of skate stuff it kind of

had that mystical theme to it.

The place was just perfect.

The whole plaza and all it was was just marble ledges.

And a few small steps.

And then this gap that went out over the foot pad

onto the road.

- Baggot Gap was at the front of main Bank of Ireland

headquarters, is it A or B?

I'm not sure.

Shows how much attention we paid to the actual building

but there's a long wall that's about yeah high and it's,

we used to, it was a common spot just to,

trying to ollie onto it, grind along it.

Just do various tricks onto the wall but the big thing

to do was skate all along to the point where it

dropped down a flight of steps and then there was

a foot path and then a road and you're trying to ollie

off the top of the wall clear the footpath onto the road.

- So you could do tricks from this block over the footpath

onto the road.

Perfect ground.

Whatever kind of stone the ledges are made from.

They just, they just were perfect to skate.

Ohhhh!

- I mean you can go down to Baggot Street somedays and 50,

maybe even a hundred people skating Baggot Street.

Funny when the cops came, everyone scampered every different

direction on just one car.

- And then every few months, the Bank of Ireland would

pay for some lad with a sprayer thing to come along

and spray all the wax off and you'd get there and be like,

ahh fuck, back to square one.

So there'd be like three or four lads out there waxing

the ledge, just kind of moving down a bit.

- We were all down skating Baggot Street, then a riot van

pulls up anyway, we're not really doing anyone any harm

but they pull up anyway in force.

So we all scampered every different direction.

We hid in a back of a Georgian building under

a little bridge type thing and the next thing

the guards come in, come out of the darkness.

They took our boards off of us and they told us that

if we could make it to Harcourt Terrace police station

before they did, we could have our boards back.

Funny enough, we knew the city, we skated every lane way

in the bloody place and we got to the guard station

before the car with all the boards got there.

They never even took our names, they just handed

the boards back.

I think they saw the funny side of it too.

- That was the kind of, our Mack Bauer and Barcadaro

or whatever back in the day.

Yeah, the Baggot Gap, I just want to say it was

McMamana did it first just I want to clear that up.

And yeah, that was the main spot, that was, yeah,

like you'd go down there and skate all day and you'd get

kicked out, you'd go around the Quaranty SB, get kicked out

of there, back around to Baggot Street.

- I have heard that Dublin was kind of at the foreground of

skate stop and was doing it before any other large cities.

That some of the companies behind making actual skate

stoppers were Irish based.

I don't know if that's just conspiracy theories I've heard.

- For as long as I've been skating, there's been rumors

about oh you know, it's definitely gonna be capped

next month, it's definitely gonna go.

And then just turned up one day and it really was.

- It's time for you to leave.

You understand what I'm saying?

Get on your vanguards.

You're being televised already so you needn't

be televising again.

- In a way it was probably a lesson in disguise because

it meant that people went and started exploring parts

of the city that they, that they didn't before.

- People started going down to IFSC and they'd skate

IFSC and they'd go down to skate park and people would just

find other spots.

There was always like Leeson Street, the Conrad Hotel

was another place that people used to go.

There was always somewhere else but Baggot Street

because it was such a big bank, it was such a nice place

to skate with a lot of people.

- Like I was saying before about how people kept saying,

ah, Baggot Street's going to be capped, like that spot's

going to be gone.

And you heard it for so long that you stopped believing

it or you're just like whatever, like it's not gonna happen.

And then, to be honest, it was kind of the exact same

in terms of the skateparks where for years you heard

there was always petitions going round and people saying

yeah there's going to be a park here, there's going to be

a park in Mongstan and there was always rumors of like,

ah there's definitely a public park happening.

And I just totally stopped believing it, I was just like

it's not going to happen.

- The whole skate stopper thing, there are kids, I mean

my real passion for skating and the thing I'm probably

most proud of is actually getting some skateparks built.

And again, Roger Cavagnaugh and Michael Reedy, Shaggy,

a few of us, we put the first petition in to

Dublin City Council in 1986 and we got a skate park

in 2004, I think it was.

So basically, 20 years of asking, during that time I was

absolutely resigned to the fact that it was

never gonna happen.

And I can understand, you're a business and you happen

to have a ledge in front of your place and these kids

come and they're chipping it, scratching it and all

you're thinking of is some kid is gonna crack their head

open and I'm gonna get sued.

- Just skating here.

- I'm just warning you.

The guards appear out of nowhere.

Put the cones back where they belong.

- So I totally understand it but my argument to that

would be those kids are going there mainly because

there is nowhere else for them to go.

So, this is the thing, you just see it with the skateparks

and you see it like here in Bushy and Lucan and the lads

obviously down in Greystone's as well, it just pulls kids

in, it gives them somewhere to go.

And it's that permanent thing that skating never really

had before here.

- And as with everything, it's a love hate relationship.

But yeah it's got to be good for skateboarding isn't it

because you're getting more people interested.

Even that stops you skating street spot, it's like real

street spot, so what have you but then there's

more skateparks being built and that obviously good

for everyone in the long run.

As a place for kids to go where they're not going to be

doing stupid stuff and then they can skate, enjoy themselves

and make new friends and again like a social good time.

Everyone feeds off everyone's energy and everyone

has a rad time.

How can that be bad?

- Skateboarding, it's like a video game

that's never complete.

Every generation that's come to it has brought a completely

new level to it.

It's like as I said, when I first got into it I was

inspired by somebody learning how to ollie over a two

by four, somebody ollieing over a grate.

The generation five years later then saw kick flips

and flip tricks.

The generation five years later is like, oh maybe if we

ollie and we could flip and jump that gap.

So now at the moment you've got some of the guys that we

sponsor doing flip tricks down 16 stairs.

It's just it's normal for them because they saw what was

done by say the last generation.

So it's gonna be insane to think what skating's going

to be like in another 10 years time.

- The high that I'm always going for is the moment that

I make something that I've never done before.

Even if it's something that has already been done by

someone else, it doesn't matter to me.

It's the idea that I've gone a step further and I've

overcome something and I've made something possible

that I only imagined.

And to this day, it's still like, that's still the big buzz

for me, that's what I'm still chasing even though I'm

relatively old for doing it.

But I still love tinkering new stuff and trying new

techniques and watching this whole sport evolve.

It's amazing how far it's gone.

- I'm Keith Walsh.

I'm a skateboarder from O’Devaney Gardens.

It's brought me everywhere.

It's brought me to all over the place, like America, Europe.

I started on the streets and then through time

skateparks started getting built like all over the place.

- Dublin City Council eventually started to listen

to skateboarders that we've been telling them for

like 25 years, you should build skateparks.

- Like what are they gonna do if they don't like football

and they don't like rugby or whatever else like that?

You definitely need facilities like that.

- And we had been at them for years and years and every time

we approached them we were told, it's a fad.

And they waited about 25 years and suddenly discovered

it's not going to go away.

So, they started putting in skateparks.

There's a fine example in Bushy Park and Traamore

and Swords and Blanchardstown and we've probably got

a total of about 35 skateparks in Ireland now which is

great, about time.

- When Bushy Park was built, like that was the first kind

of really good public park that really worked.

And I think the corporation could see, or like the council

could see that it was getting used.

- Just promoting skating.

The more parks that open people will keep skating.

Now a lot of people back in Clive's day would give up

because they're getting sick of street skating, getting

sick of kicked out of spots, there was no ramps but now

the skateparks everywhere that keeps all the skaters

interested and all the parks are different.

Like you've got ramp parks, street parks, there's a bit

of everything for everybody.

- There's always cops telling you to get away from a certain

spot or something.

It's like trespassing or something but now you can just

go to any skatepark now and enjoy it

instead of getting, worrying about getting kicked out.

- Yeah, without a doubt Clive's was the focal point

for all of that, like starting point, yeah.

Daddy Clive, yeah.

Not really Clive!

- Most of us are still skating to this day but I think

it was the sort of cohesion we had as a group growing up

and all the time skating that maybe kept us skating.

You know, there was always someone to skate with.

- I still skate every week.

I'd love to be able to skate everyday but I can't.

- It's one thing I can put my hand up and say I'm good

at this and build decent parks.

- I think one of my earliest skateboarding memories

is skateboarding on a plastic board when I was maybe seven

or eight down hill next to where the skatepark is now.

So it was kind of like beautiful, kind of circle of events

coming back around.

- But for us guys from Dublin, I think that was, if you

were into skateboarding, that's where you went.

- I suppose in the old days it was, sort of,

a very underground thing to be a skateboarder.

Whereas nowadays because there's so much of it on

like EuroSport and a lot of the cable channels and that,

it's accepted probably more now as a regular sport.

Especially with people like Tony Hawk because I know

he's very successful with Playstation and Xbox 360 games.

A lot of kids would have got into skateboarding because

they probably got an Xbox for Christmas and played the game

first and wondered if they could actually skate

and sort of took it from there.

- Oh, I think any growth in skating is positive.

I've never thought that somehow we had to covet it

and hold it away from people.

I never could figure out as a kid why more people

didn't appreciate it.

So that wasn't really my frame of mind.

I liked that it was different but I didn't necessarily like

that it separated me from the kids I went to school with

all the sudden.

Or that I was marked to be doing something so strange.

And so when I see skateboarding as it gets bigger

and more appreciated by more, you know, nowadays parents

encourage their kids to skate.

That didn't happen when I was a kid, at all.

The exact opposite.

And I think that's amazing because the people who have

devoted their lives to it are finally able to make

a living doing it.

Not that they're cashing in, it's just that they're finally

validated for all their effort.

And that's how I feel about it and so when I see these

skateparks cropping up all over the place I'm amazed at it.

I love it.

- We would get to work for what we wanted to do.

Kids nowadays they just need to pick up a board

in a skate shop.

And then go to the park and watch some guys skate

and then an awful lot of what you'll learn from, or

how you learn to skate is through observation,

watching other people skate.

Partly the motivation and then you'll also see their

techniques and so on.

Of course, we had to watch VHS tapes which were probably

two years old at the time and try to replicate

what they're skating.

And if you like ramps you have to build your own and so on.

We all grew up skating through a little recession

way back when.

- Eh, they're lucky little bastards, excuse the French.

- It's way more, well, it's way more accepted in terms of

mainstream recognition of being a career,

a legitimate career.

When I toured Ireland, we get on an airplane and people

would be like what do you do?

I'm a professional skateboarder, they would just laugh.

- Well, let's just hope there is a future in skating.

Like, full stop, because if there's not that's going to be

a lot of people disappointed.

I think as long as people keep doing it and progressing

and what have you, it's gonna continue,

people ain't just gonna stop.

Like people didn't stop when in the '70s when it was big

and then yeah it died out for a bit but then

it came back, right?

Then, yeah, there's been a bit of a lull with the recession

lately and what have you but it's coming back again.

So, it's the same with any kind of thing isn't it?

There's times and waves of when things are really big

and trendy and then when they're not.

And it's probably just going to carry on along that vibe.

Let's just hope it keeps, with all the now the new media

attention and the tv shows and what have you, hopefully

it just keeps like building up and the skate industry

keeps going strong.

And if not, it'll just be underground again and we'll

all be a bunch of nobheads skating down the street together.

Wicked.

Sounds alright to me.

- I was just trying to worry about the kids coming to skate

and keeping the kids that are trying to decide if they're

going to be a skateboarder or not.

I just want to try and make them into a skateboarder,

make them, help their decision along.

Instead of getting into football.

Instead of picking up that razor scooter.

Stick it with a board a little bit longer, it's so fun.

You really think we just made all this up to try

and take your money.

It's cause we're skaters and that's what we like to do.

It's fun.

- And I love that it's as much of an art form as it is

a sport, I mean its active, it's competitive but it's also

very creative and I've met amazing people

through skateboarding because it attracts people that are

that think differently.

- I think he really loved what he was doing and he,

he was living and working outside the normal parameters

of life and I think he loved, genuinely loved pushing

the skateboarding to new levels in Ireland.

And I'd say that's why you know.

It was exciting times.

- But I really think skateboarding had a place and by

providing the facilities I think now it's starting

to take off and long way at last.

I hope it's still around when I'm dead and gone.

- One more you're off on your ear.

What you gonna do?

Don't fucking touch my camera, right?

- I told you put it down.

- Don't fucking touch my camera.

Don't fucking touch my camera.

- I fucking dare you to hit me.

I dare you to hit me.

I bury up to hell you fat racist fuck.