Smile! You’re On South Beach TV

Ah, Summer in Greystones…

t was whilst sunning themselves over in Lahinch that local lads Matt Wilson and Eamonn Whelan noticed a small surveillance camera pointing out to sea.

Being nosy feckers, they asked the surf shop nestled beneath the camera what it was all about.

Matt gets to work…

Turns out, some clever clogs had set up a 24hr live stream on YouTube for those who wanted to check surfing conditions before actually getting out of bed and loading up the Citroen CV.

“And we both instantly thought, Greystones could do with one of these,” says Matt.

A few months later, and the South Beach is social media’s latest would-be influencer, a solar-powered camera revealing all the wonders – and possibly wetness – of our fine seafront attraction.

Funding by Wicklow Local Sports Partnership (of which Shoreline’s Whelan was a chairperson from March 2019 to August 2022)  as part of their Active Wicklow campaign, this live stream will make Greystonian’s lives that little bit easier.

Especially if you’re nosy. Or you’re trying to avoid certain people when you hit the beach.

“It’s something we’re hoping to expand over the coming months and years,” says Aisling Hubbard, a co-ordinator at WLSP. “We’ll see how this first live stream – which doesn’t record, incidentally – goes down with people, and then look to hitting other points along the east coast.

“The hope being that it adds to our plans for a Wicklow Coastal Blueway, which would be the first of its kind. We’re proposing five Blueway nodes – Arklow, Wicklow, Kilcoole, Greystones and Bray, each one having a defined access point to the sea, a supporting trailhead, signage and interpretation information.”

And if you’re wondering what the hell a node is, it’s a ‘point in a network or diagram at which lines or pathways intersect or branch’.

You can find out more about Wicklow Local Sports Partnership here, about the Wicklow Coastal Blueway Project here, about the current water quality here, and, most importantly, you can bookmark that South Beach live stream right over here. Also, harbour’s covered on windy.com, if you hit their webcam option here.

Now, go explore our South Beach archives here.