Statue would be ‘seal of approval’ for Dungarvan’s famous surfers

A local volunteer has called for a statue to celebrate the “surfing seals” of a Co Waterford town.

The seals are regularly spotted around Dungarvan Harbour, but most famously when atop a paddleboard fixed in the River Colligan in the centre of the town.

The colony is said to consist of around nine seals, but they are usually seen “surfing” in groups of two or three.

Garvan Cummins, who runs a bike hire in the town, said the surfing seals have “become very synonymous with Dungarvan”.

He said: “A lot of people come to see them, a lot of photographers come along to see them, so they have become, I suppose, an iconic symbol of Dungarvan.”

He said a local resident placed the surfboard in the river around 15 years ago and in stormy weather the surfboard flips and goes barnacle side up, meaning the seals will not attempt to board.

When this happens locals come out and either flip the board or remove the barnacles to make it amenable to the seals again.

Sar’anne Walsh, a Dungarvan local and volunteer with Seal Rescue Ireland, said the surfing seals are “such a draw” for the town, and residents were “devastated” when the board became unmoored and floated out to sea in July 2023.

It was found and returned by a local fisherman, and the board was cleaned before its replacement in the river, removing the seals’ scent.

It was nine months before they were seen on the board again, and Ms Walsh said: “It’s literally only been the last couple of months that they are back in their original numbers and frequency.

“The day that the seals came back I was driving through, and it’s just off a bridge in the estuary.

“As I was coming over the bridge, there were two seals up on the board and I initially started to sing and dance in the car, but the next thing I saw a tourist bus coming up against me, and the driver and the tour guide in this really big tour bus, they literally had these huge, massive smiles on their face and the tour guide was gesticulating madly.

“It was obviously something that they were showing to tourists coming through Dungarvan all the time, and that they hadn’t been there in so long, and they were so delighted to see that the seals were back.

“Every other car that was passing, people had big, massive smiles on their faces and it was all over the local media then about them being back as well.

“Worldwide, because I have looked into it, I don’t think that there’s anywhere else that there are seals literally sunbathing up on top of a paddle board in the middle of an estuary in the middle of an urban setting.”

Ms Walsh described the board as “perfectly placed”, being a safe enough distance from humans for the seals but also where they can be easily seen and photographed.

“It’s parked right outside the hotel which is great, a hotel that’s just had a big, massive extension as well,” she said.

“There’s local businesses after opening up and they’re actually using the name of the surfing seals because they’re getting so well-known.

“The local cinema, for example, has an advert that it shows just before the films come on, and it’s a seal up on the surfboard saying, ‘don’t throw away your rubbish’.

“You know, it’s the environmental thing, but they’re using the surfing seals as a way of connecting people between don’t throw away rubbish, it’s good for the environment, as we can see from our seals.”

After seeing the reaction from the tour bus to the seals’ return, Ms Walsh approached a local councillor about getting a statue of the seals to mark their importance to the town.

“We really need to be doing more and recognising more about these seals because so many people – it was all over Instagram and Facebook all that week, ‘oh they’re back, they’re back everybody’,” she said.

“We have to commemorate what these seals mean to everybody locally. It’s just, it’s incredible.

“When seals are very happy, they do a U-shape, it’s called a happy banana. It’d be great to see that up on a statue.”