Seamus grew up beneath the shadow of Queen Maeve's grave on Knocknarea in Strandhill, County Sligo. Seamus Mc Goldrick began bodyboarding at ten years of age at Strandhill Beach. Seamus initially wanted to learn to bodyboard after watching videos of Hawaiian bodyboarder Mike Stewart.

Seamus entered his first surfing event at the County Sligo Open and began surfing with the Irish surfing team at age 13. Seamus was selected for the Irish team to attend the 2000 European junior surfing championship in Jersey, Channel Islands, UK where he got his first taste for international competition competing in the U16 bodyboard division. Jersey is also where Seamus gained the nickname 'Shambles' from his teammates for leaving his brand new bodyboard on a bus.

As well as competing in numerous national surfing championships in Ireland, Seamus also represented Ireland in the men's bodyboard division in the European surfing championships in France, Spain and Portugal. Seamus realised a major goal when he attended the World Surfing Championships in Ecuador in 2004 where he was the event's highest placing Irish athlete.

After achieving his dream of competing for Ireland at the world championships, Seamus focused on pushing himself in waves of consequence on Ireland's west coast. Seamus and his friends were at the forefront of a dramatic period of evolution in Irish surfing which saw the discovery of a number of world-class waves and a radical redefinition of what people thought was possible on Irish shores.

Seamus still had time to complete a degree in physics in Dublin and study performing arts and Irish traditional music and folklore in County Leitrim.

It was an exciting time to be an Irish bodyboarder. Using a jetski, Seamus began towing into big waves at newly discovered breaks like Aileens and Rileys. In January 2011, Seamus became the first bodyboarder to tow in at Mullaghmore Head in County Sligo, a premier European big wave spot. Seamus was also the first bodyboarder to tow into Prowlers, another big wave spot in Sligo.

In November 2011, Seamus was selected as the coach for the Irish Bodyboard team to attend the inaugural World Bodyboarding Championships in Gran Canaria in the Canary Islands. Seamus stayed on in the Canaries after the event to compete in a professional bodyboard event, the Fronton Showdown.

Seamus came to the attention of Mike Stewart, the owner of Science Bodyboards, a nine-time world champion and Hawaiian bodyboarding legend. Getting to know his childhood hero and getting sponsored by Mike's companies, Science Bodyboards, Viper Fins and Gyroll accessories was the culmination of an amazing fifteen-year journey in bodyboarding.

Sligo Surf Experience origin

Mike Stewart came to visit Seamus in Ireland in 2014 and Seamus had the pleasure of showing Mike and the UK Science team around. Seamus never would have guessed when he saw his first video of Mike Stewart bodyboarding in Hawaii in 1996 that he would get to meet Mike in Ireland 18 years later!

Seamus is the distributor for Science Bodyboards in Ireland. Seamus is also supported by Xcel Wetsuits and by the eco-fashion label Rapanui.

As well as surfing in Ireland, Seamus enjoys exploring other surf cultures and has traveled to Indonesia, Morocco, the UK, France, Spain, Portugal, Ecuador and El Salvador. After moving back to his native Strandhill, Seamus qualified as a surf instructor and began teaching surfing locally.

In January 2017, Seamus got a big surprise when received an email from his mentor Mike Stewart to say he had been given an invitation to the prestigious professional bodyboard world tour event at the infamous Pipeline on the north shore of Oahu in Hawaii. It was an offer he couldn't refuse.

Since his earliest exposure to the sport of bodyboarding, Seamus' dream was to go and surf Pipeline. To get to surf in Hawaii and compete on the world tour at the Mike Stewart Pipeline Invitational was even better. In Hawaii, Seamus met the daughter of Tom Morey, the man who invented the modern bodyboard in 1971 on the Big Island of Hawaii. Seamus subsequently became a co-founder of the Friends of Tom Morey campaign with Mike Stewart and Melinda Morey to help raise funds for Tom, now in his eighties, after he lost his sight due to glaucoma. The Friends of Tom Morey campaign raised over $100,000 for one of the legends of the surfing world to take care of medical bills helping Tom fund two eye-sight saving operations in 2018.

In December 2017, Seamus was awarded the Clean Coasts Ocean Hero award for Individual of the Year in Dublin for organising weekly beach cleans as part of this Ocean Warrior summer camp as well as other Clean Coasts activities. Seamus had been involved with the Clean Coasts for a number of years. Seamus and his team have been successful in introducing scores of young surfers to the idea of doing their own beach clean and the problems facing the marine environment from plastic pollution on his surf camps each summer. 

In February 2018, Seamus decided to set up his own business offering his unique brand of surfing and bodyboard classes. Sligo Surf Experience was born. Sligo Surf Experience is designed as the perfect vehicle for Seamus to share his knowledge gained from over twenty years in the ocean and his love of the Sligo Coast.