"Hireth" Finds Empty Waves and Solitude In the Remote Scottish Isles

“There is a tangible feeling of solitude,” Lay shares of his experience surfing in Scotland. “While feeling relatively far from modern day civilization, there is a sense of being closer to our past.”

Throughout the film, a sonic bath of Celtic folk music ebbs and flows as though in sync with the ocean’s swell—the tempo picks up as logs skim across the wave’s face, then dissolves into an almost dissonant sound of too-sharp notes, or total silence. The soundtrack seemingly mimics the ocean’s fickle nature that is capable of both starving or filling up a wave-hungry surfer to the gills with smooth, glassy rides.

Perhaps this effect is simply good sound editing, but the starts and stops of the music’s tempo are also reflected in scenes of Lay and MaCleod dancing up and down their boards clad in modern wetsuits, interspersed with shots of a rural countryside’s empty roads, neolithic monuments, ancient mountains, and Scottish bothies.

In many ways, this juxtaposition of past and present is the crux of the film, which its title—hireth means “a longing or a yearning for something or somewhere that you can’t return to” in Cornish—alludes to. “During the trip, the sense of 'hireth' was felt as both loss and discovery,” Lay tells Field Mag. “From a surfing perspective, the feeling of loss comes from the boom in surfing and the dwindling opportunity to surf in such splendid solitude.”

It’s hard not to marvel at the “splendid solitude” in Hireth, which perfectly depicts the rawness of cold water surfing and the wild beauty of the Scottish Isles that appear to have almost been frozen in time.

Yet, as Lay explains, it’s not merely discovering that picturesque beach breaks free of crowded lineups still exist (if you’re willing to find them), it’s acknowledging that what connects surfers, or anyone to a place, and here, perhaps even past to present, are the people.

“Surfing in Scotland is characterized by tight-knit, committed and welcoming communities along the vast stretch of its coastline,” says Lay who, when not surfing, spent his time shooting the project with MaCleod and his family in the Hebrides.

“The MaCleod name is synonymous with the Island of Lewis, and the hours we spent talking and sipping whiskey with Colin and his family was a vivid illustration of what love, respect and connection to a place looks like. In our case it is the extended surfing tribe which brought us together, a tribe which I'm so grateful to be a part of.”

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