What an incredible day we had on Sunday, 30th May. The weather started off a bit cloudy with a bit of a breeze which made it feel cool but as the day progressed the clouds dispersed, the breeze dropped and the sun shone. So many onlookers ended up with sunburn or at least a good colour. The water temperature was in the region of 16°C which was a very pleasant surprise to many.

Just to go back a day, Fergus Lynch and Breen Fay met me at Crover where buoys were weighted and dropped to give an outline of the 2.5k course. Unfortunately the GPS was not working properly so it was estimated the distance between each of the 10 buoys. On Sunday morning it was felt that the course might be a bit short but we would have a good indication after the 15k swimmers used the course at the start of their swim. It was amazing to see the transformation of the quiet little harbour behind Crover House Hotel into an amazing hive of activity. Boatmen with lake boats, kayakers, safety crew with ribs, officials, ambulance crew, supporters, onlookers and of course the swimmers. Charles Harper brought the large Swim Leinster orange buoys which were placed to guide the swimmers to Finea and back and were very visible to all. The briefing for the 15k swim took place around 9am and the boatmen/paddlers paired off. Swimmers were counted and numbered, Paddy Brady and Eddie Quinn took the lead boats and Peter Banks, High Performance Director with Swim Ireland sounded the horn at 10am and away the 16 swimmers went. The lead swimmers finished the provisional 2.5k course in approximately 21 minutes which indicated the we were somewhat short in the distance. So Declan O’Reilly used his GPS equipment to correct the shortage. John Wilson, Commodore Ramour Boat Club drove Declan around to move the necessary buoys. Meanwhile the 14 swimmers who entered the Irish National 10k swim were getting ready and at around 10.45 their briefing took place. Again they were numbered by Lucy and Sharon, then the swimmers put on their sun cream (!) and grease (Vaseline, mostly). More boatmen arrived from the Shannon Fisheries and local men as well as kayakers that some of the swimmers brought. Again Peter Banks started this swim in almost perfect conditions. Chris Bryan from Limerick set a scorching pace (despite a slight deviation off the corrected course which probably added close on 5 minutes to his time). Over each of his four laps of the circuit Chris got faster and faster finishing in a time of 2hrs and 6mins. He was followed home by Colleen Mallon, Lisburn, (2h 22m), and Owen O’Keefe, Fermoy, (2h 25m) and then birthday girl Susanna Murphy in 2h 29m. Ten of the fourteen swimmers finished the full swim, one swam 7.5k, one swam 5k and two retired with recurring injuries. The 5k swim had a great entry of 24 swimmers but we had 4 no shows. Sadly Declan Proctor’s Dad died last week and we offer him our sincere condolences, Declan, you were missed! The same procedure as for the other swims took place and Bridie Smyth, well known locally for all her work with Water Safety in Sheelin over the years, did the honour of starting the swim. It was a highly competitive affair with less than 5 minutes between the first 6 swimmers over the two circuits. Sinead Tyrell, a Garda from Dublin, was first home in 1h 9m followed closely by Tom Healy and Rachael Lee, both from Dublin. Two of the very promising junior swimmers were next home Lucy Gaynor, Dublin and Conor Smyth, Galway. Then we had the 1k swim which saw 14 swimmers compete over the 250m course. Some of the swimmers were coerced into swimming by their children who were swimming in some of the longer distances!! Joe Smyth, father of Conor, was first and it was great to a good few do this swim despite never doing anything like this before. Back to the 15k swim where swimmers were told that when they came back to where they thought they were finishing they would still have a further 2.5k circuit to do to achieve the 15k distance. Some rather unkind words were uttered but 12 of the 16 continued on and completed the swim. In actual fact 3 of the swimmers, Andrew Flannagan, John Daly and Tom Noblett continued to swim for 6 hours, or slightly over, to qualify to swim the English Channel later this year. Julieann Galloway from Texas, but studying in UCD, showed her immense talent and completed the swim in 3h 31m. Howard Keech from Dover was some 16 minutes behind Julieann and the a further 18 minutes back was Andrew Flannagan of the Corrib Water Polo Club. There were a good few of the other swimmers who are due to swim the English Channel either this year or next as well as some big challenges such as Galway to Aran at the start of August, the Lough Erne 50 mile Relay, next week and Lake Zurich. Thank You for being there and taking part Sorry for the confusion about the course (especially the 15k swimmers) but it was rectified in time for the 10k and 5k swims. The 1k swim times are not collated so if you send me your time I will include it - it was meant as a fun swim and I hope that is what it was!! I owe a debt of gratitude to a lot of people and hope I do not omit any, if I do my apology All the boat men, especially Fergus Lynch, Paddy Brady, Eddie Quinn, Ned Clinton, the Chambers, Ken McCarthy, Breccene Ennis John Wilson, Ciaran McSwiney Carratraw Canoe Centre, especially Sean Thornton & Matt Fitzgerald All the paddlers Cavan Civil Defence Shannon Erne Fisheries Crover House Hotel, boats, facilities and meal Waterways Ireland who gave us the red buoys and Swim Leinster the orange buoys John Egans (2 - rib and kayak), Declan O'Reilly Kieran Fitzgerald, Peter Banks, Charles Harper, Breen Fay, Aoibheann Bartley The Smyth Family who helped in many, many ways to put the whole event together The Patterson Family who did the snacks and beverages and Sharon who helped in the overall planning & organisation Mick & Ella Farrell Lucy, Bridget and Debbie and everyone who turned up to support the event. Martin