As many people will know – because he told them – Liam Maher swam 6km this weekend. Never one to undersell his achievements, Liam was hardly out of the water before he was on the phone spreading the word. Decent guy that he is, he felt bad, however, that he simply didn’t have time to contact everyone he just knew would be interested – so he rang in to a local radio show. In case you missed it, I managed to find a transcript of the call, as follows…….

DJ: So, Liam, thanks for calling in and staying on the line for over three hours waiting until we got you on air.

LM: No bother, I knew people would want to hear about it. 6 million millimetres, like. That’s not done every day.

DJ: So that’s, six kilometres, is that right?

LM: Yeah, if you want to shorten it, like. But, yeah – six kilometres. In May, like. In the sea.

DJ: And were you on your own, Liam?

LM: Well, no, like, Eddie and Jim and so on were there as well, but just hanging on to me, like.

DJ: Oh, ok, and are Eddie and Jim and the others there with you now?

LM: Well, no, like – they went home after, but I had calls to make and then I was waiting to come on your show, so no, it’s dark now and there’s nobody else here.

DJ: Oh, right, ok. Grand. Liam, we have another caller on there who says that some guy Lynch swam 8 km – or eight million millimetres as you might say, Liam – this weekend and apparently he’s not goin’ on about it. Have you anything to say about that, Liam?

LM: Well, like, I dunno, like, did anyone see him like, did they?

DJ: Well, Liam, apparently there were plenty of witnesses and, again, he just isn’t blowing his trumpet – he just did it and went home. 8km, like. Which is a good bit more than your 6km, like. Also, Liam, our researcher is in my ear there saying there seems to be some information online about previous claims you’ve made about swims – stuff about Ballycotton and Manhattan and that. Have you anything to say about that?

LM: Listen, c’mere, there was no evidence of that stuff at all. Apart from the eyewitnesses, photographs and official published event timings, there was no proof at all that I hopped in a boat or got a tow. None. Zero. Nada, like. Anyway, you rang me about my magnificent 6km swim. Why are we talking about this other completely unproven stuff?

DJ: To be fair, Liam, you rang us and after nearly three hours of hogging our line we eventually had to put you on and beEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEPPPPPPP………Hello, Liam? Liam? We seem to have lost Liam there. We’ll try to get him back. Or maybe we’ll ring yer man, Lynch. He sounds like he actually did something worth talking about…..

TRANSCRIPT ENDS

Amazing news at the weekend as a local entrepreneur spotted an opportunity in adversity and announced the launch of a new business in Myrtleville. As some of you will know, Buoy 4 played hidies for a while on Friday – mostly to convince Laurence and Marcus they were gone mad: he’s a right messer, is 4 – but it reappeared in the night (Boo!).

While others saw problems in this situation, one man saw a chance to capture the zeitgeist and provide what all decent, right-thinking Irish people want when they are loyally following the government rules and socialising outdoors – drink.

Thinking blue-skyishly outside numerous boxes, Sam Russell recognised that mooring a floating bar at Buoy 4 would not only mitigate the risk of it disappearing again, but would also meet the needs of poor, thirsty swimmers gasping for a pint as they got halfway around a lap. Never one to rest on his laurels, Sam has sourced a suitable bar – see picture for a swimmer’s eye view of the new premises – and staffed it in full.

The staffing wasn’t as hard as it sounds. Sam quickly decided that if the business was to be called Russell’s at the Rock, it needed to be manned at all times by a Russell brother. This isn’t as onerous as you might think – at last count there were about a million Russell brothers. Also, since they abandoned hair colour as a differentiator, most of us won’t know which of them is on duty at any time. Especially after we’ve had a few.

The main hurdle for Sam was overcoming what he was sure would be a rigorous assessment and risk analysis by the infamously nit-picky Myrtleville Swimmers New Stuff Committee. The minutes from the emergency session of the Committee, held on Sunday, clearly show that Sam was right to be concerned.

Extract from minutes:

Committee: So you’ll be serving drink out at the Dutchman, like?

Sam Russell: Yes.

Committee: Proper drink? Beer, gin, vodka, like?

Sam Russell: Yes.

Committee: Feckit, dat’s de berries. Mine’s a pint, boy!

Meeting ended.

As you can see, rigorous. What could possibly go wrong?

See you at the Dutchman. The first round’s on Sam.

It seemed almost too good to be true. A brave, lone Myrtlevillian embarks on a quest to commune with nature (he went for a swim, like) and meets magnificent marine mammals – AKA de dolphins. With the image beamed around the world (it’s on CorkBeo anyway), Harry Casey has been inundated with offers from Hollywood for a film about his experiences. The project – with the working title “Swims with Dolphins” (like Costner in that wolf thingie years ago) – is being cast (Ryan Gosling is on to play Harry, apparently, but Harry reckons he’s not macho enough) and we hear plans are in place to engage Peter Foott with his local knowledge of filming on the beach for the Young Offenders.

By all accounts the script has a storyline that sees Harry abandoning the rat race and living on the beach in a Dryrobe tent (you stick two hurleys in the sand and drape the robe over them – you’d get a family of six in there) to be close to his dolphin family. It has Oscar written all over it. And yet…..beware the siren call of Hollywood. We have been here before.

Back in 2016, there was a similar clamour around another touted epic – “Basking with Bernie”, the story of one man and his shark co-habiting in the waters around Myrtleville. Bernard Lynch was living in the sea at the time, preparing for his Channel assault and he formed an attachment with a giant basking shark. Their interactions caught the attention of a passing fisherman who snapped the shot below and turned heads in Hollywood. They were going to make it a back-to-nature, save the planet biopic type of thing. Jack Black was down for the lead role and Colin Farrell was going to play the fisherman (he had fishing-acting experience from that mermaid film down in Castletownbere).

Just like Harry’s film plans, it all looked good and they were just waiting for Bernard to finish the channel swim so they could start filming. Unfortunately, things changed around then in America. In the Trump era there was no appetite for some shark-hugging, sea-loving, leftie-liberal, environmenty-type stuff. Bernard was asked if he’d consider a film where he chased down the vicious shark with a spear gun but he declined and that was the end of it. He still has a rake of “I swam with Bernie” T Shirts on sale in the shop, by the way (25% off this week only).

So, Harry – enjoy it while it lasts, but keep the day job. This one might go down the tubes yet. You can’t trust those fillum fellas.

Tom was on the beach almost every day and Siobhan Russell has a lot of pictures to prove it.  I have put some to suitable music to remind us how much he loved his daily swim and the craic, uplifting the spirits of all of us. As he’d often ask – “Where would you get it?”.  For Tom, nowhere else – only in Myrtleville.

We lost a great friend in Myrtleville today.  One of the original Myrtleville Swimmers, Tom Bermingham, passed away.  He always had a smile, laugh and a chat for everyone at the beach and was an inspiration to us all.  He will be greatly missed.  Sincere sympathies from all swimmers in Myrtleville to his wife, Kathleen and his family.

Tom Bermingham (L) as we’ll remember him, with his great friend, Pat Higgins.

Meet the stars – Steve Redmond gets to have his photo taken with Pat Higgins and Tom Bermingham. “Better than any Oceans Seven”, said Steve 🙂