Ross Doyle Interview – Issue 46

Introduction & Interview by Jono Coote

Photography by Gerard Riera

In the heartfelt but chronometrically improbable words of Celine Dion, it’s a tale as old as time; a skateboarder leaves their rainswept home for a skate trip to Barcelona, and within a couple of years it has become their home. Or, in the case of Ross Doyle, one of his homes; dividing his time as he does between a Catalonian base and his hometown of Cork due to work demands and making the most of both worlds. Ross has for some time been holding it down on the streets of Barcelona, whilst at the same time ensuring that Ireland’s ledges remain in a permanent state of truck-fuelled fear. His efforts have been rewarded with a spot on the ever-roving DC Europe team, he’s pieced together more lines at Paral-lel in the last couple of years than tourists have been pickpocketed on La Rambla and, with the bevy of photos below working their way to us, I hit up the bread connoisseur and tech wizard to see how life is in the skateboarding capital of Europe, as well as in Barcelona.

Yo Ross, cheers for doing this! What are you up to right now? It makes sense to kick this off by asking, apart from the obvious weather disparity, what took you from Cork to Barcelona? And how long have you lived there now?

What’s good Jono! All good here, I’m just chilling on the train back from Vila Nova, taking in the air conditioning. Apart from the weather and the spots out here I’m actually just mad about the city itself, even besides anything to do with skating. It’s crazy how much more the place has to offer when you leave MACBA! I always trip that you can be up a mountain, then surrounded by high rise buildings, then in the sea, all in the space of a 15 minute push.

I first came here back in 2018 with some friends and Ryanair sent our luggage out to Alicante instead, so we were here for our first time with no boards, it was awful haha. Two weeks later I came back again (with my board in my hand luggage this time) after realising how cheap and easy it was to get/stay here. On that trip I met a bunch of homies and we kept in touch all the time, so I’d travel back and forth on school/college holidays for years. When I finished uni back in Cork two years ago, I made the move out here properly.

On the skate side of things, it always looks as if Ireland has a surprising wealth of marble plazas – I imagine as a result of the Celtic Tiger economic boom. I assume this is what influenced the way you skate, and I imagine set you in good stead for the move?

I love skating in Ireland. The spots there are dope and when you put out footy from there it’s cool too, because it’s a little different. I feel like people get surprised when they see that there are actually some super good spots there. Sometimes I’ll post a clip on my story when I’m skating back home and a homie from LA or Brazil or something will hit me up asking about it haha. But I feel like you can find a bit of everything to skate in Ireland to be honest, there are some perfect ledge plazas but also some crusty, quick feet type of spots. I definitely feel lucky that it was like that growing up skating there, because when I moved here I could try to make the most of everything rather than just the perfect spots.

And Barcelona definitely has those crusty spots for those who want them. How did you find the move over? I know many skaters do it for a period, but with Airbnb having fucked the rental market sideways, plus the language barrier limiting work options, I can’t imagine it’s always easy.

I actually much prefer the more unusual spots compared to the perfect plazas over here. They’re not as blown out and it always feels better to get a clip on something different. I’ve been skating a bunch of prop up drain spots/bumps, as you can probably tell by the photos in here. I find them mad fun to skate and there’s some super good ones here that not many people have been to yet. 

I was actually super lucky when I moved here. Everything fell into place for me pretty smoothly, I’m mad appreciative of that. One of my homies from Dublin has a flat over here so I just rent a room from him. On the jobs and language barrier side of things, I quickly realised that my Spanish isn’t great and neither is the wage over here, so I actually work remotely from Cork as a freelance graphic designer now. I pop back every month for a couple of days for some meetings and then work the rest of the month remotely over here. It’s actually super nice because I get to stay in the loop back home as well. It’s crazy how quickly a month goes by though, I feel like I’m always over and back. I live a double life haha.

It’s cool that you get to keep some roots and still explore a different city. I always wonder to what extent graphic designers who skate were inspired by the layouts in skate mags.

I reckon anybody that’s a graphic designer and a skateboarder was definitely a skateboarder first and then became a designer after. I remember one time seeing this meme on Instagram saying that skateboarders who end up in university can only be graphic design or photography students, and it’s true in my case; all my friends I grew up skating with that went to college studied one or the other!

I would always try and tie skating into whatever project I could throughout my four years studying. I remember for my final year project I had a stage where I was just flicking through old skate mags and putting them into an InDesign PowerPoint as background work, it was sick. My homie on the same course actually filmed my DC part as part of his final year project, so we were going out filming with the VX for 3 months during college classes and technically doing the right thing! It’s funny, before I started college I never really looked into how things were laid out in skate mags. I would just read the interviews and gawk away at the photos one by one. Now when I see how well done the mags are, by you guys or Free for example, I’m like, “Damn, these guys got their design principles poppin’” haha.

Haha appreciated! How did the DC Europe hook up come about? Having been on a few trips to different parts of Europe, what have been some of the highlights in terms of both countries and spots?

I originally started getting shoes through Primetime in Cork. I owe them a lot, they hooked it up, pushed me to the guys at Boardriders as much as they could and eventually I ended up meeting all the EU managers in Barcelona. From there I met the team as well, we clicked super good and became homies and after that they started inviting me on trips and shit. I was hyped. My first trip was a 24 hour desert festival in Lleida that DC was sponsoring. We had to do a miniramp demo there. I remember sitting in the back of the van with Wes thinking, “How did I end up here?” I was tripping. In terms of countries and spots, I would actually say I enjoyed my time in Bristol the most. It reminded me of Cork a lot and I liked skating the crusty shit like Little Lloyds and that old hip spot close by. We got some banging food that Layth recommended us every night and it was just a good combination of chill and fun but productive too. Good times!

I feel like Ireland gets overlooked as a skate destination quite a lot. A couple of years ago you put out ‘Cmon Dawg’, a part exclusively in Cork – was showing what the city has to offer part of the impetus to do that? There must be specific pros and cons that come with trying to put a part together somewhere that you know so well.

After a while it definitely was. It would be cool to see some magazines and brands visit Ireland, if you got the weather it would be the perfect place for a trip. A lot of different spots, lots of NBDs, good food, good craic when you’re not skating, the list goes on! When I originally started filming for that I wasn’t thinking about making a video or anything. My homie Luke McSweeney just got the VX so I was thinking it’d be fun to film on that for a day rather than just on my phone like usual. I put up a story of me and the filmer checking a clip and my homie Joan, the DC TM here in Spain, hit me up saying that, if I was filming a project, we should put it out through DC Europe. After that I thought it’d be a good opportunity to film for a few months and put out a video to show off some of the spots around Cork. 

As far as pros and cons, I’d say it was all pros to be honest! Although there are some great spots in Cork, we tend to always just go to what we call ‘Ledges’ – very creative, I know – our ledge spot in the city centre. Filming a video meant we had to revisit some older plazas that people would’ve skated back in the early 2000s, as well as some spots that have always been there but we just never had a reason to go out of our way to go there, and actually film something.

On the subject of Irish skate media, while I was researching this interview I came across the Quay Skate Co video ‘Lough’. Please can you tell us about handstand man? Assuming you have more knowledge than us, anyway… There’s a lot of really good skating in that edit, then some random nutter comes through with the gnarliest stunt.

Haha this guy actually lurks around Limerick city, so I’ve never seen him in person. I had to hit up Cian, who just told me that the dude is a gypsy who turned born again Christian and just bops around the place doing front flips and handstands and shit. The dude definitely made his mark in the video, a bunch of people commented on that when it came out.

That story is everything I hoped for and more. I’ve got a couple of questions from Luke Kroon here. Firstly, can you tell us what you’re a black belt in, and have you been taking people down on the streets of Barcelona?

I’ve got a second degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do. I used to train a lot, from the age of seven to seventeen, then when I went to college and started travelling a bit more for skating it kinda got put on the back burner. I do miss it though, I always say I’d love to get back into it. Definitely some day. Luckily I’ve never really been in a situation where I had to use it. If shit is kicking off I always think it’s better to just dip if you can. But it is good for your head knowing that, if something goes down, you’re able to pop your shit haha.

Is it true you clean your shoes with wet wipes every day before you film a clip?

It is. I clean my shoes every morning before I leave the house. I’m mad fussy with all that shit. I don’t mind if I get covered in wax or whatever while I’m out skating, but when I start off I wanna feel fresh.

“I went camping with him before and my parents and I woke up to him eating sliced bread in the middle of the night.” That was sent by someone whose name is only given as ‘Dave’, and isn’t a question so much as a statement, but feel free to elaborate.

This one has me laughing so much. I went camping with my homie Dave and his family when we were 14 or 15. I was a mad fussy eater when I was younger, I must not have had much at dinner time and just chomped away on the sliced pan in the middle of the night. I actually love bread. I just went through half a baguette with olive oil before typing. That’s another good thing about living in Spain; for someone that loves bread, they serve it with everything over here.

Let’s round things up with a Barcelona quickfire round:

Most memorable Tom Penny sighting?

Watching him roll away from any trick I’ve seen him do at MACBA with his hands by his waist and his head down, looking mad sleepy.

€1 Estrellas, icy cold and fresh from the nearest drain; affordable refreshment or gastroenteritis in a can?

Gastroenteritis in a can for sure. I still can’t believe they keep them in the drains.

Spotter or Picnic?

Picnic.

MACBA or Paral-lel?

Ohhh that’s a hard one. I’d probably say Paral-lel, though.

Most tech longboard trick seen at MACBA?

Regs mongo push.

Most irritating tourist moment witnessed?

Man, I remember one of the first times I came here I was staying in some awful skate flat in Raval. The place was falling apart and every time I’d get down the stairs to the front door there would be hella pickpockets and crackheads balmed out on the street that’d try and nab me. I’d say I was like gold dust for them, some 16 year old kid, white as snow and clearly not knowing where I was. Somehow they never actually got anything from me, I still don’t know to this day how I got away with it.

Three things you miss about Cork?

A proper cup of tea, a takeaway on a Saturday night and good air quality! 

Three things you’d miss about Barcelona if you left?

€5 haircuts, going on missions and that hotel jacuzzi and swimming pool I sneak into that’s always on my story haha.