This post begins a new series here on Loneswimmer.com. There are certain patterns that I’ve seen repeated over the years. There are certain experiences that recur, certain thoughts that reappear, coming anew each year. Though previously experienced, all feel fresh each time, only deepened by the growing realisation that what were once first-time or rare…
I’ve only met Quinton Nelson twice. But since each time I spent a good 15 hours on his boat, the beautiful ex-RNLI boat, the Guy And Clare Hunter, I guess that counts for something. I’ve been (mostly) fortunate enough over the past six years to have met quite a few pilots. Some of them belong to the…
In the movie of his life, “plump, stately” Donal Buckley will dramatically played by George Clooney, with swimming stunts by seven times world 50 metre champion Mark Foster, a platoon of Irish Army Rangers, and a seal. A real seal. A Common Seal. Born in 19whatever, Ireland’s year of Independence and nine months after his mother went…
Swimming for me, as for many of you my readers, provides a valuable part of my life, not least of which is the meditative and mostly non-stressful pursuit, where we swim not just in water waves, but also in alpha-waves. (Though occasionally the more dangerous the water is, the better for my mood and preference). But as…
For the early hours of the swim, Finbarr was positioned and feeding (including a third of a Turkish Delight) on the port side, while one of the SeaCat fast ferries to Belfast was rapidly approaching about a kilometre south on the starboard side. This threw a large wake which reached Fin a few minutes after his feed, bringing the…
Subconsciously, I’d pulled the goggles from my face, feeling the familiar discomfort around my eyes as the suction released. They dangled weightless from my fingers. Above the seafront buildings rose a hill and a town. A road led through the near buildings to disappear into tiered houses that fronted a low hill. I was stunned.…
Instead of a beach, shadows loomed over me and the water went from gold to black in sudden deep shade. A wall of dressed stone met my fingertips and loomed two metres over me. It was a pier, stone mooring bollards along the edge. There was another pier twenty or thirty metres away to my…
I’d swum a double handful of strokes on one breath, and seen so little and yet so much. Only water, rocks, kelp, light? You don’t understand. Time to breath and navigate, I lifted my head. Golden sunlight dazzled me, washed over me. I know it had been months, the previous autumn since I’d last swum…
Winter reduces my range. I swim at the Guillamenes, along the cliffs and shore of Tramore Bay. Maybe, just maybe, I might get down to Sandycove for a lap. Days pass when I see no-one, arriving, swimming and leaving without a soul. Spring comes with almost imperceptibly warming water and air and increase in the number…
This is the second part of a three-part series of a pictorial exploration of the Atlantic Ocean as I know it, primarily on Ireland’s south and south-east coasts. As with the last time, these images are best viewed individually at a larger size. All will be added at full resolution to my Flickr account. Atlantic…
The Atlantic Ocean is in me. For almost 20 years since it got its hook into me, I’ve been haunting, (in a moderate non-weird way), the Irish Atlantic coast, primarily the west, south and my own Copper Coast in the south-east. For many years, in the depths of grim nights, I have stared into the…
Part 1. “Magic that takes you out, far out, of this time and this world” – George Bernard Shaw on the Skelligs It was still cloudy at Portmagee, and a few swimmers and yakkers assembled on the pier to load the boats. We were outward bound on a small fishing boat with two support yakkers…
A couple of years ago I carried a swim report of the third annual Beginish race, which due to inclement weather that year , was held in the Sound between Valentia Island and the mainland of the Kerry coast, at the extreme south-west of Ireland. I called that report racing on the edge of the world.…
I came across this gem from 1963 in Sports Illustrated archives a couple of years ago. I’m just going to reprint it. Hey, an easy day, no writing! * From Donaghadee in Northern Ireland to Portpatrick in Scotland is a fraction under 21 miles. Between the two land masses the sea rages in swollen tides and hungry eddies. Out…
Ireland loves football. So does your country you say. Soccer, Aussie Rules or NFL, whatever. Ireland likes all football: Soccer, rugby, compromise (Aussie) rules, Gaelic football. All have huge followings. That outnumbers your single national football version. And the biggest is Gaelic football, which is only played within the country and is better supported than…
For some, there is no greater sporting event than the English Channel. Sporting event isn’t even a good description. The Australian surfer Nat Young once said the worst thing to happen surfing was that surfing was seen as a sport instead of art. Similarly, for most swimmers, Channel swimming should be thought more as a…
I have waited a long time for this official announcement and am very proud and honoured that Lisa has chosen loneswimmer.com to announce her big swim for this year. But before we get to that … For those of you who don’t know, Lisa Cummins was the twentieth person to swim a two-way English Channel…
Sea Thrift that is, Armaria maritima, also known as sea pinks. Ireland’s Copper Coast has a lot of it, growing all along the coast on the cliff edges, in rock crevices and stony ground where nothing else grows. It’s a perennial which has a high drought and salt tolerance, in fact it seems to do best…
Hook Head is one of our favourite places in Ireland. I’ve been lucky enough to finally get a new halfway decent camera so I wanted to take a visit to the Hook for some long-hoped-for photos for the site. A long flat low bare almost treeless peninsula in the south-east, at the other side of…
The weather in Ireland has been broken for the past five days. It didn’t operate as normal. It’s the end of March and instead of the usual dull cold grey, it’s been warm, bright and sunny. So like quite a few others I changed to a few days of sea swimming and even did a…
These are my steps for a great Irish Coffee. A little difficult to make after a swim at the coast, so you’ll be doing this at home. Irish Coffee was invented in Shannon Airport in the 1950’s by the barman in the airport pub. Shannon was also the world’s first duty free airport shopping. It is…
I have been deputized to speak on behalf of the entire country of Ireland in this. We have universal agreement. It may in fact be the only thing we all agree on. March 17th is St. Patrick’s Day, St. Paddy’s Day or just Paddy’s Day. It is not ever St. Patty’s or St. Pattie’s Day.…
I find a lot of similarity between Stephen Redmond’s fantastic Molokai Channel and Lisa Cummins’s two-way English Channel. Waiting for news and updates all through a Sunday afternoon and night. The trackers working intermittently or not at all, and hoping for more updates from the boat through third parties. The agonising last 10 hours, wondering where they…
This is a one subject site, open water swimming. Everything on the site relates to open water swimming. But since open water swimming is part of my life, sometimes other parts of my life or some of my interests get pulled in. They may look tangential but it’s because I’m trying to contextualize my swimming…
Recently I wrote about how I consider safe entry and exit points and possibility of swimming at all tide times to be a critical requirement of a good open water swim location. Kids growing tend to think the whole world is the same as their local experience. Though I didn’t live by the coast growing…
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