![\"Two](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/00242f2b-614.jpg\"\/)
\nThe seals prompt ‘big, massive smiles’, one local said<\/p>\n
A local volunteer has called for a statue to celebrate the “surfing seals” of a town in Co Waterford.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
The colony is said to consist of around nine seals, but they are usually seen “surfing” in groups of two or three.<\/p>\n
Garvan Cummins, who runs a bike hire in the town, said the surfing seals have “become very synonymous with Dungarvan”.<\/p>\n
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.”<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
When this happens locals come out and either flip the board or remove the barnacles to make it amenable to the seals again.<\/p>\n
\nThe seals prompt ‘big, massive smiles’, one local said<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
It was found and returned by a local fisherman, and the board was cleaned before its replacement in the river, removing the seals\u2019 scent.<\/p>\n
It was nine months before they were seen on the board again, and Ms Walsh said: “It\u2019s literally only been the last couple of months that they are back in their original numbers and frequency.<\/p>\n
“The day that the seals came back I was driving through, and it\u2019s just off a bridge in the estuary.<\/p>\n
“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.<\/p>\n
“It was obviously something that they were showing to tourists coming through Dungarvan all the time, and that they hadn\u2019t been there in so long, and they were so delighted to see that the seals were back.<\/p>\n
“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.<\/p>\n
“Worldwide, because I have looked into it, I don\u2019t think that there\u2019s 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.”<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s parked right outside the hotel which is great, a hotel that\u2019s just had a big, massive extension as well,” she said.<\/p>\n
“There\u2019s local businesses after opening up and they\u2019re actually using the name of the surfing seals because they\u2019re getting so well-known.<\/p>\n
“The local cinema, for example, has an advert that it shows just before the films come on, and it\u2019s a seal up on the surfboard saying, ‘don\u2019t throw away your rubbish\u2019.<\/p>\n
“You know, it\u2019s the environmental thing, but they\u2019re using the surfing seals as a way of connecting people between don\u2019t throw away rubbish, it\u2019s good for the environment, as we can see from our seals.”<\/p>\n
After seeing the reaction from the tour bus to the seals\u2019 return, Ms Walsh approached a local councillor about getting a statue of the seals to mark their importance to the town.<\/p>\n
“We really need to be doing more and recognising more about these seals because so many people \u2013 it was all over Instagram and Facebook all that week, \u2018oh they\u2019re back, they\u2019re back everybody\u2019,” she said.<\/p>\n
“We have to commemorate what these seals mean to everybody locally. It\u2019s just, it\u2019s incredible.<\/p>\n
“When seals are very happy, they do a U-shape, it\u2019s called a happy banana. It\u2019d be great to see that up on a statue.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A local volunteer has called for a statue to celebrate the “surfing seals” of a town in Co…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":388414,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-390517","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=390517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390517\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/388414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=390517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=390517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=390517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}