Dun Loaghaire: Another Irish Classic this Weekend!

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Just a couple weeks after the world famous Liffey Swim, the Global Swim Series returns to Ireland for another world famous open water race in Dublin. The Dun Loaghaire Harbour Race is considered one of the most prestigious swimming races in the world and winning this race is a tremendous honour. Rather than taking place in the Liffey River, this weekend’s event in Dublin will take place in the historic harbour of the city.

The Dún Laoghaire Harbour Race was first run in 1931 and it has run every year since, making it the second oldest continuous race in Ireland. There were however swimming races run in Dún Laoghaire Harbour before 1931. See YouTube clip of a swimming race in Dún Laoghaire Harbour in 1926:

Irish Olympians Donnacha O’Dea, Kevin Williamson and David Cummins have won the men’s race. English Channel Swimmers Anne McAdam and Lisa Howley have won the ladies’ race.

Dun Loaghaire Race Course

The Dún Laoghaire Harbour Race comprises a 2,200 metre race around the circumference of Dún Laoghaire Harbour battling fellow swimmers, reaching marker buoys, avoiding any number of obstacles and taking on the might that is the Irish Sea.

The race starts at the RNLI slipway beside the East Pier. The Swimmers then swim out by the National Yacht Club of Ireland, the RNLI lifeboat and out along the Carlisle Pier. They then swim across from the Carlisle Pier to the mouth of the Harbour and the East Pier Lighthouse. This is roughly the half way point. Friends, family and spectators then can walk or run along the East Pier and follow the swimmers as they battle the last 1,000 metres home, past the anemometer, the Boyd Memorial, the Band Stand and finally the last gruelling two hundred metres from Berth No 1 back to the finish line at the RNLI slipway.

In many sea races swimmers are swimming out to sea around a course marked by marine marker buoys. Spectators on the shore have difficulty in identifying individual swimmers, and swimmers certainly cannot hear the commotion and the noise of the crowd.

The Dún Laoghaire Harbour Race is different to most sea races as there is considerable interaction between the crowd and the swimmers. There is an opportunity for the crowd looking down from the East pier to clap and cheer on swimmers as they start their journey out around the Harbour. The swimmers in the water can see and they certainly can hear the crowds on the return journey along the East Pier. The louder the crowd cheer the closer a swimmer is to the front of the race. Friends and family can identify individual swimmers as they swim past from the East Pier. The only other swim which has the same interaction between swimmers and spectators is of course the Dublin City Liffey Swim.

Don’t miss out on any of the action on Sunday at this true Irish classic!

Guinness, Dun Laoghaire

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