Portrait: Leo Sharp.
There aren't many skaters from Ireland who have had an 'official' sponsor; nobody really gets the chance.
Were you born in Derry?
I was born in Creggan, an estate in Derry. I lived there for a few years, then my parents got me the f*ck out of there. It was sketchy there when I was born; it’s not as bad now, but it was when I was growing up. They realised that it was smart to move out of there before I got too old, because I wouldn’t be sat here doing this interview if I was raised in Creggan.
You’re 25 now, so when you were born, it was the tail end of The Troubles, right?
Yeah. I was born in ‘95, then the ceasefire was called in ‘98, and that’s when things kind of started to get back to normal. There are always little resurgences of the past, people who are trying to bring the fighting back, but my generation and the generations below us, they don’t give a sh*t. The Troubles is old stuff to the kids (laughs); they don’t really care about that now.
Even though you moved out of Creggan at a young age, were the paramilitaries still present when you were growing up?
Yeah, you’d see them all of the time. I know people that have been dealt with by the paramilitaries, who have been shot because of drugs or other ‘antisocial behaviour’ as they like to call it, but all paramilitaries are the same as the people that they’re shooting, in my opinion (laughs). You see a lot growing up in Derry, but that’s why my parents moved us out of Creggan, because the paramilitaries are still pretty active in the estates, and they didn’t want me to grow up around that. They just knew if our family stayed there, I wouldn’t be doing anything; I’d still be there, 25 years of age, doing absolutely nothing. But I’m actually in Liverpool, skating with all the boys, which is way better than doing nothing in Derry.
Opening up with his ender from RISE - frontside shove-it down the towering stairs of St Anne's, Belfast. Photo: Gallagher.
There’s been an active skate scene in Derry since the 80s at least. Do you remember first becoming aware of skating in the city?
I became aware of it when I must have been 10 or so. I’m pretty sure the first person I ever saw skate was Jonny Mulgrew, a guy from just outside of Derry that used to skate with Jay Doherty, Dee Diamonds and all of them boys. I saw him skating at Sainsbury’s; I think that sparked an interest, but I didn’t start skating until there was word about a skatepark opening a couple of years later. I got more serious about it because I didn’t want to look like that new guy at the park that couldn’t do anything (laughs). I skated for two years before the park opened, and once the park opened in 2010, I went there every single day.
And that park was Rosy’s, I’m guessing?
Rosy’s Surf and Skate was the first one. It was great. It was a massive indoor park with concrete ground. I went there at 10 in the morning and stayed there ‘til 10 at night. I’d be there every day after school. I was a little rat, I was there constantly; they probably got fed up seeing my face all the time.
You must have been at Rosy’s when we went there on the Shiner Ship Tour back in 2011. That was one of the best demos I’ve ever seen.
I was, yeah. I just used to watch Diamonds, Richie Campbell and John Fleming skating the park, then we heard Stu Graham, Manhead (Josh Young), Jake Collins and all were coming over…to this day, that Shiner tour was probably the best tour to come to Derry; I don’t think there was another tour after that (laughs). It was the first, last and best, all in one (laughs).
You’ve said your mum and dad came from a background where football was the norm, and other members of your family boxed, so what did your parents think when you turned up with a skateboard?
Kickboxing is what I did before skating. My dad got me into it, and I did that for five or six years, but skating was always there as well, and I knew skating was the one. I didn’t want to go and get punched in the face for fun, I’d rather skate, but for everybody else in Derry, you play football, box, or you’re a hood.
My cousin had a skateboard so I got a skateboard, then once I got into it, my mum was like, “you’re crazy, you’re going to kill yourself”, but my parents never once were unsupportive. They were always there; they were my first sponsors, if you know what I mean? If I needed shoes or anything, they’d sort it, because they could see that it was the only thing that I cared about.
Your dad showed me some newspaper clippings of you skating some indoor setup when you were really young.
Did he? That was the sports complex in Derry. Every Easter or Christmas break, they used to bring these ramps out and have big sessions. The Derry newspaper ran all of these photos of us skating there as kids; some of the other boys gave their names as Andrew Reynolds and Chad Muska (laughs), the guy from the paper didn’t have a clue. I think I only went down a handful of times, but that was the same time as I was doing kickboxing.
'Up the Waterfront 3' might sound like a political slogan, but it's just Dee going against the Belfast grain. Photo: Gallagher.
At that point, did you know much about what else was going on in skateboarding in Ireland?
I had no clue. I was a kid, like. I’d skate at the sports complex, and the only place I skated other than that was my own back garden, on plastic ramps that we bought.
Tell us a story about growing up skating Derry, something that wouldn’t have happened anywhere else.
There was a time when I was in school, I used to hang around with people who didn’t skate; they were just hoods, but they were good craic. They all knew I skated, but they didn’t give a f*ck about it. I was skating in town one day, and a big group of hoods all walked through and started shouting at my mates, calling them ‘freaks’ or whatever, and they almost got into a big scuff. I saw one of them and thought, “I f*cking know him”, so I skated over to him. He looked round at me and said, “oh, what’s happening Dee?” I was like, “what are you all doing? These are my mates”. He shouted over to the rest of them, “nah boys, these guys are all sweet”, and they just walked off. I came back over to the boys that I was skating with, and they were shook, going, “who the f*ck were they? Those guys are sketchy looking; we thought we were going to get stabbed and all”. I said, “nah, f*ck up boys, they’re not sketchy, they’re just my friends from school” (laughs).
For everybody else in Derry, you either play football, box, or you're a hood.
Dave Mackey: What’s happening? Had a deadly day in the shop.
We’re just doing this interview.
Have you got anything you want to ask Dee?
Mackey: I’ll have a think and get back to you; it’ll be about Derry.
Didn’t you once shoot a photo in the Bogside? That’s the next estate over from where Dee was born…
Mackey: I did, yeah. A crook grind in front of the Bloody Sunday mural, with Jay Dords. It was actually Orangemen’s Day, and I remember, because it started raining, so I was stood under a tree for shelter, and my friend Ade (Newton) would run over to dry the bench off between goes. Jay Dords was down the street ready to take the photo, and a load of lads came over to me to ask me who I was and what I was doing. Obviously I’ve got a British accent, so they were like, “you what?” Jay came and spoke to them all, and they were cool as f*ck in the end, but obviously I was a Brit trying to crook grind a bench in the Bogside on Orangemen’s Day (laughs), so at first they were like, “it’s not going to wash this, mate” (laughs). We need to do a National trip to Ireland.
Get all of the boys over…all 50 of them (laughs).
It's easy to see why this one gets the Neil Macdonald seal of approval. Textbook 360 flip, Edinburgh. Photo: Leo.
When did you start seeing skating from other areas of Ireland?
When Rosy’s opened, in 2010. Instantly, the older heads, I started skating with them, but they were showing me clips of skating from Belfast. I didn’t have a clue who any of them were, but I was like, “oh my God, there are loads of skaters all over this f*cking country”.
Do you remember first leaving Derry to skate? When was the first time you would have travelled to Belfast, or Dublin?
Rosy organised a trip with a few heads from Derry, Cian Eades from Limerick, Gav Coughlan from Dublin, and Sherbert DipDab (Mark Foran) from Wexford…there was a whole crew of us. I don’t even know how the f*ck it happened, Rosy just said we were all going to go on a tour, and Monster was paying. We drove from Derry to Dublin, then skated places on the way back up to Belfast, and ended in Derry, for a jam at Ebrington Square on the last day.
The guy who was filming it wasn’t a skate filmer, he was just a freelance filmer that had been sent by Monster. We all thought, “this is going to be some top filming”, but I don’t think the guy had ever seen skateboarding before. After the tour, Rosy had the laptop out at the park, and he said, “oh, the tour footage is back”. We sat and watched it, and I don’t even want to say it was bad, but do you ever see those clips, like Google ads, and there’ll be a guy ollieing over a GoPro on flat? It was ten minutes of that kind of footage. There was a clip filmed from behind of someone rolling up to a set of stairs switch; he popped, and the footage cut to down below, and he was landing a completely different trick in a different stance (laughs). He just chopped the footage up; the edit was crazy. That was my first experience of what a trip was, and after I watched the footage, I thought, “we just went on that trip for nothing” (laughs). At the same time, it was sick, because I didn’t really know any of those boys before that tour, and seeing other people skate was good as well. That was the first time I’d seen Cian skate in person, and he was the best. He still is the best.
You rode for Via Skateboards for a while when you were younger. Was that your first sponsor?
No, my first sponsor was another small company from Carrickfergus, called Develop. That lasted for a few months and we didn’t really do anything, then the next sponsor I had was Cloud Skateboards. Them boys are f*cking legends; the videos that they make for their adverts and all, they’re so funny. I got on Cloud for a week, and then I went to Via (laughs). I was a wee hungry kid who wanted to film and be in videos, and I thought Via could put me in videos that would be seen outside of Ireland. So I jumped on Via, and rode for them for two, maybe three years.
I don’t really know too much about Via, other than Joe Hill rode for them. Wasn’t it based in Germany?
It was based in Hamburg and run by a guy called Chris. He was from Ireland, but he moved to Hamburg to start a family, then sold the company to Joe. It didn’t last that long after Chris sold it, because all the boys on the team were getting offers from other companies, so everyone just went their separate ways. I am glad that I was on Via for so many years though, because I got to go to Germany a few times to film, and I met so many people that I wouldn’t have met otherwise. It was for the best when everyone left, because again, I wouldn’t be sitting here if they hadn’t (laughs).
One to test the pedants. Bridgewater backside heelflip, Manchester. Photo: Leo.
This seems like a good point to ask how the Sole Tech connection came about. You and Don Brown seem like pretty good mates if social media is anything to go by; how did that happen?
(Laughing) That all happened through Instagram. So in 2018, éS re-released the Scheme in three colourways. I wanted to buy a pair but I missed the online release, so I just commented on Don’s post saying, “will there be a restock of these?” and he DM’d me, saying, “what’s your address and shoe size? I’m going to get a box out to you”. I got the shoes, then he said to me, “film some clips in them and send them to me”. I filmed a wee edit for Instagram, and he shared it, then we kept talking, and a few months after he sent another box. By the time we were in Barca in 2019, I got an email saying I was on the team, and every month I’d be getting a package. They sent me so many shoes it was ridiculous. They’re definitely legends over there; they looked after me, big time.
Is it true you met John Shanahan on that trip to Barca?
Did I meet John Shanahan? No.
That’s what I heard!
I f*cking wish (laughs).
How was it that you ended up on DGK then?
That’s from Instagram, again. I was talking to Cooley, the TM of DGK in America, and when I was in Barca he asked if I could send him the footage I’d filmed with Hippy (Ryan O’Neill). I sent it to him, and I’m pretty sure he sent it to the heads of Kayo, then they got back to him and said, “go for it; put him on flow”. But there was a whole f*ck up at the start, because Cooley thought the distributor over here was going to sort me the boards, but they weren’t told that they were supposed to do that, so whenever I asked them, they’d say, “we need to ask the guys in America to make sure this is sweet” (laughs). But it got all sorted out, they sent me a box; I got maybe nine or ten boards, and it was f*cking surreal. When I started skating, the first video I saw was It’s Official, the Kayo video. I figured out what DGK was, and from then, the whole style, the music, the graphics, the clothes that they wore…for me, everything had to be like that. I based everything on it. It was sick because the people I skated with, it wasn’t that they didn’t know what DGK was, they just weren’t fans of it, so it felt like my little thing.
You ended up in Scotland last September on one of the earlier missions for the mag, with all of the Fore-Cast boys. Was that the first time you’d been away on a media focused trip?
That was my first proper skate trip. Denis (Lynn) messaged me, and he asked, “do you want to come on a trip to Scotland?” and instantly I said, “yes, let’s go”. Kevin Parrott paid for me to go; it was my first time out of Ireland for a proper skate trip, not just one that I’d paid for by myself. Denis told me the line up of people that were going…when I heard the names, I thought, “holy f*ck. What am I going on this trip for?” Sam Pulley, Jake Collins, Charlie Birch, Sox, all the Fore-Cast boys…I thought, “I am not going to be able to skate anything that these boys are skating”.
I’m pretty sure the first spot was the red brick bank in Glasgow where Charlie did the 270 to pivot, then everyone was like, “let’s go to a skatepark”, and we went to some massive concrete bowl. I thought, “for f*cks sake”, so I just sat down. It was amazing because I’d never seen skating like that in person before. It’s way different in person, seeing someone fly out of a bowl. But I didn’t once try to jump in on the session. I know that I can’t do what they’re doing, so I just sat back and watched those boys. I only skated three street spots on that trip – some ledges at a stadium, and two sets of stairs (laughs).
More Irish skaters need to be given opportunities...it's sh*t to see that no one is hooking them up.
That wasn’t your first trip over this way, was it? Hadn’t you spent an entire weekend at Southbank a bit before then?
Yeah. I talked to Twiggy (Cameron Gooden) on Instagram, and Ash (Parchment), and told them that we were coming over to London for the weekend, and they were like, “just meet us at Southbank”. We got in late, went to Southbank and skated there all night, then did the exact same thing the next day. We went to Mile End for like an hour, then came straight back to Southbank (laughs); that was the whole weekend. Once I left London and got home, that was when I saw all of the spots that I actually wanted to go to, then I knew we’d f*cked it because we’d spent all weekend at Southbank. It’s a trap, but it’s sick. That set up – the ledge and then the stairs – I could skate that all day.
I guess it was at the end of last year that things with DGK came to an end. What was the story there?
I was happy enough to get one box from DGK so I could tick that off the list. I got that box from the States, but after COVID hit, production was f*cked for them and they couldn’t send any more boxes. They said I could try to go through the distributor, but I decided I’d rather wait until something else came along. I messaged Denis and said, “I think me and DGK are finished, I might go somewhere else”, and he said, “if you’re going anywhere you’re going to f*cking National; I’m speaking to Rye now” (laughs).
A Tommy May suggestion pays Nottingham dividends. Drain kicker to backside tailslide. Photo: Leo.
Me and Denis had talked about it last September when we were all in Ireland, but I said if you had the chance to do something with DGK in the States that I’d rather you see where that could take you. But once I saw you were taking National boards out of Sole.lo, back in January, that was it (laughs).
That’s how it happened. Chris (Anderson – Sole.lo owner) had told me, “if you ever need a board, just come to the shop and take one”. I needed a board, so I went up and there was a 7.75” National board – it was probably the only 7.75” board about – I was like, “I’m skating this”. I sent Denis a photo that day and he was hyped to see me on one of the boards, and then you messaged me about sending some boards to the shop. We’ve just been working on it since then.
Similarly then, when did the New Balance switch happen?
That was after that Scotland trip. Once again, Denis Lynn phones me and says, “I’m just sitting here with Charlie. What do you think of New Balance?” I said, “yeah, they’re sick”, so he asks, “but what do you think about riding for them?”, and I said, “I’m on éS”, then he says, “but what do you think about New Balance?” and it keeps going round like that. I said I’d have a think about it. I thought about it every day for three or four weeks, and I didn’t know if Denis was talking sh*t or if he was going to do it, but him and Charlie had said they’d told (Mark) Baines and Mackey about me. Denis said for me to send Baines and Mackey clips, and to say that he’d told me to do it, so that’s the first thing I did, then Baines messaged me two weeks later and said, “I’m keen to send you shoes if you’re interested?” At the time, I was like, “oh f*ck, what do I do here?” because he wanted to send me shoes that week, and I hadn’t said anything to let éS know that I was even thinking of leaving. I had to tell Baines, “I’ve not even told éS yet, but you can send me the shoes and I’ll just keep them until it’s sorted”, because in my head at the time, I knew that I wanted to change to New Balance, but I just hadn’t said it yet. The only person I’d told was my girlfriend (laughs). I got the shoes, skated them for two weeks and filmed a load of clips on my phone, then I told éS I was leaving. I thanked them for everything they’d done for me, but I’d been skating and traveling with Charlie and some of the other New Balance boys, and I kind of felt like part of the team already. After getting National boards as well, there are a few of the boys that are on New Balance too; it just seemed to fit. After I let éS know, Baines said I could post the video I’d filmed, so I did, and I had so many comments saying, “what the f*ck? Where’s the éS? What’s going on?”
The crecendo of Wild in the Streets: Dublin. Heelflip, landed to the elation of exactly 48 spectators. Photo: Leo.
Do you think that skateboarders in Ireland are disadvantaged in terms of gaining wider exposure? In your experience, do skaters in Ireland have to work harder to achieve any sort of level of recognition?
Yep, they have to work way harder. If you’re from Ireland, you know how hard it is to skate that place. Everything’s rough, but the people of Ireland as well – it’s getting better now – but back when I was a kid trying to skate street and all, people look at you like you’ve got f*cking ten heads. They just didn’t understand what we were doing. There aren’t many skaters from Ireland who have had an ‘official’ sponsor; nobody really gets the chance. If you’re in London, you can skate for a London brand, but it’s different because everyone is looking at London, everyone knows the people skating in London. If you’re an Irish skater riding for an Irish company, it’s so much harder to get noticed outside of Ireland. There are only a few Irish skaters in the past who have had proper recognition as well, like Conhuir (Lynn), Denis, even Bernie Rae back in the day.
How do you think that situation can change?
More Irish skaters need to be given opportunities. Out of the amount of amazing skaters there are in Ireland right now, it’s sh*t to see that no one is hooking them up. It’s only skate shops hooking them up, or Irish brands; there are no companies from the UK or anywhere else really reaching out. So many skaters from Ireland deserve some shine, especially further down south. Every single skater in Cork is f*cking amazing, they all should be hooked up by somebody, but it just doesn’t happen because they’re in Ireland.
Bridging the gap between 1998 Philly and 2021 Liverpool with a full speed backside lipslide. Photo: Leo.
Mackey: What’s your favourite photo or footage from Ireland?
I don’t even know if the footage is out, but Charlie fifty-fiftying that crusty as f*ck kinked rail in Bangor, straight off the plane. Bobby Worrest noseslid it, but it’s never been ground before, and Charlie just jumped on it.
Mackey: That’s random, that. As if Bobby Worrest and Brian Lotti went to Ireland. They went to Ade’s house. The door knocked, and it was Jay, Brian Lotti and Bobby Worrest. He stood there, like, “what the f*ck?” (laughs) What about your favourite trick done in Ireland by an Irish skater?
Cian did a switch flip over this massive f*cking grass gap in Limerick, or somewhere down south, but the way he does switch flips, the structure…he caught it, and it kept going up. I think that was in a section he released for Santa Cruz.
Mark Baines: Josh Kalis or Stevie Williams?
Stevie. It has to be Stevie. Again, not that Stevie didn’t get his chance, but I’ve always wondered if Stevie had got his first, instead of Kalis. He should have been the one who got the JK1; that should’ve been his shoe. I love Stevie’s mentality too, and the way he thinks about skating. His style, his tricks…he’s the best.
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