Andy Irons in a now-iconic 2002 image from Tahiti, sharing a barrel with his good mate Shane Dorian (seen swimming up in the lip). Photo: Tom Servais/Outside.

Brad Melekian has written, and Outside Magazine have published, an incredible feature on Andy Irons that casts a truly unflinching eye over the man, his surfing, and how we all responded to his death.

As legendary Australian surf journo Nick Carroll said, “this is the sort of painful shit everyone has to read if they’re fair dinkum about surfing and what it means to them. A guy died for christ’s sake, and it’s all very well to say RIP, but until we’ve all shown the respect to face up to what actually happened and learn from it, how can he RIP?”

The full article is available here, and if you’ve got 15 minutes, we can’t recommend it more highly.