Fantastic work from Denis Condon recording the 31 October swim, with technical support from Ms. Sheehy, as ever!
Myrtleville Vampire Swim – d’Video
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Category Archives: Events
Vampire Swim Party
Well done to Aisling Barry and Marie Watson for organising the Vampire Swim on Saturday and making a party day of it. With 75 swimmers, over €1,000 was raised and lots of blood was donated. Looks like ours was the largest of the worldwide swims – is there nothing we can’t do? 🙂
Vampire Swim: Myrtleville, Cork, Ireland: 31 October, 2015; 75 swimmers.
Fantastic efforts went in to the costumes and thanks to Katie Hill and Rob for their professional work on the makeup. A great day and hopefully a new annual event. It was a party to remember.
Organisers Aisling and Marie had, of course, to contend with the usual problems when you organise a children’s party – like people wanting to know if there was a party-bag if they swam and then thinking about it when they saw what was in the bag…
Jim Shalloo gives some thought to his party bag while Aisling and Marie wait patiently for him to decide if he’s swimming or not.
Others got totally overexcited and didn’t know what was happening – the poor fella on the right here was new to the sea and was gabbling about it being the biggest pool he ever saw and what were those white things on top of it and where were the black lines and could you tumble turn on that rock and and and…the Cashell sisters and Jim (with party bag secured) just humoured him. It’s the best way with smallies when they’re wound up.
There was fantastic food for everyone and thanks to the Lowry family for the marquee etc. For some, getting their teeth into a hot dog was the main attraction.
For others, getting teeth into an Audrey was more attractive…looks like she doesn’t mind.
As ever, thanks to Siobhan Russell for the great pictures. Well done to everyone.
Vampire Swim Details
The hats have arrived and 46 of the 50 available are now allocated. If you’ve donated blood, be sure to let Aisling Barry know – Barry.Aisling08@gmail.com. Also, if you want to register for one of the last four hats! We will have other goodies on the day. €10 if you have donated blood – €15 otherwise. All money raised goes to CUH Children’s Ward.
The “swim” is at 12.00 on Saturday next, October 31st. Fingers crossed for the weather. It’s only a short dip anyway – or whatever you want to do. Come in a Halloween costume if you want – lots of people will be. It’s not compulsory, but welcomed! There’s facepainting and food planned.
Come on down…..it’ll be….fun……Mwahahahaahhaha 😦
Annual Night Swim: Year Two
45 swimmers took to the water last night in a 13.7c sea for what is now an annual event – because it’s so much fun 🙂 Those who missed it (moi, par example) will just have to suck it up and look forward to next year. I think it’s worth noting that 45 swimmers would be peak time numbers for a Summer’s day in lots of swim locations. We get that many for a night swim in October. Myrtleville really is – to paraphrase Enda – The Best Small Beach In The World To Go Swimming.
Strange things happen in the dark, of course. People begin to commune with nature or seek to communicate with other worlds. I think the phrase Ruth is looking for below is “Nanu, Nanu”.
As always, nothing works without volunteers. Carol and Yvette were in charge of the guest list and – as you’d expect at such a high-profile social event – there were people turning up arguing they should be on it etc. etc. Ah, Breda….
Overall though, it was just smiles all the way. Well done to everyone.
There will be blood…
Well done to everyone who has donated blood so far, including the group above at the clinic in St. Finbarr’s Hospital yesterday. You can arrange your own donation time: check the website www.giveblood.ie .
The Vampire Swim will take place 31st October midday. Those that have registered with Aisling Barry – barry.aisling08@gmail.com – will get a Vampire Swim hat (50 available).
There’s really nothing to be afraid of – quite clearly, Marie Watson thought it was just the best crack ever. Go on – give blood!
To the Dutchman and Baltimore
Antoinette Wilson is a regular volunteer to help at the Crosshaven Tri, Church Bay swim and other events. Taking some time for herself she completed her first ever swim to the Dutchman on Wednesday. Well done, Antoinette!
It could be that Antoinette felt the need to clear her head after the weekend away with the Myrtlevillians in Baltimore. Details are filtering back and I’m sure we’ll have enough information for a full detailed post with pictures soon. More on that later.
Also completing her first swim to the Dutchman this week was Noreen Fox – pictured at Lough Ine at the weekend. Excellent work, Noreen.
Speaking of the weekend (before the “FUN” began) it was nice to see pictures of so many Myrtleville hats and t-shirts around the Sherkin-Baltimore swim (Antoinette volunteering, again) and even some of them coming out of the water first in their categories. Charley Breen continued her great Summer of OW racing with a first in the wetsuit category.
Mr. Fastman, Anthony Sloman, came in first in the togs section. What’s great about this picture is that you don’t actually have to see the togs (or strip of cloth from 1992) he wore.
Well done to everyone who took part, as swimmer or volunteer.
So – back to the details on the night out in Baltimore. If you haven’t put your side of the story yet and don’t want someone else’s version of why you did what you did to appear on the site, be sure to contact us on 1800-DENISMADEMEDOIT or email mariesaiditwasok@gmail.com. Don’t ignore those flashbacks. Yes, you did do it and there were cameras, so you might as well tell us about it 🙂
Blood donation for vampire swim: Thursday
The official visit to the Blood Bank in St. Finbarr’s hospital is now taking place tomorrow, Thursday, October 15th at 4.00pm.
If you can make it, remember to bring your Myrtleville T-Shirt and/or Hat! There’s bound to be a camera!
Please do try to get there and donate.
For any questions, Aisling Barry – barry.aisling08@gmail.com.
Obviously, if you can’t get there tomorrow and want to donate another time before the swim, just contact the Blood Bank.
Vampire Swim – get entered.
The Vampire Swim is going ahead in Myrtleville on October 31st at 12 midday. Swim is a loose term – you can just dip your feet for a paddle if you want. The goal is to encourage people to donate blood during this month. If you donate blood, the entry fee is €10 – if not, you can still swim, but it’s €15.
Funds raised will be donated to the CUH Children’s Ward charity.
A group is being organised to donate blood on October 16th at the Blood Bank in St. Finbarr’s Hospital. Contact Aisling Barry for details – barry.aisling08@gmail.com. For info on giving blood, see http://www.giveblood.ie.
So, get ready to donate and register your entry with Aisling Barry. There are very cool vampire swim hats for the first 50 registered entries.
Vampire Swim. October 31.
On October 31st, probably midday, Myrtleville will host one of the international Vampire Swims.
Some details at the link below and our swim will be added to the list shortly.
http://openwaterpedia.com/index.php?title=Vampire_Swims
The plan is to tie in the swim with giving blood within the six weeks before the date. More details to follow, but diary this now!
Aisling Barry is organising, so if you want to help I’m sure she will be glad to hear from you!
RNLI Myrtleville-Church Bay Swim 2015 – Report & Photos
The event went off very successfully, with 101 swimmers who all completed the course. Our thanks again to all of the volunteers, the RNLI, Coast Guard, Gardaí, Funkytown and many individuals who helped with boats, kayaking, course marking, registration, van loading and – the hard bit – unloading, timekeeping, results preparation etc. It’s easy to run an event when there are so many willing helpers.
Trevor Woods took first place in a new course record of 24:24. Fantastic swimming. He was ahead of Trevor Malone and Ned Denison in second and third places.
Charley Breen produced a great swim to win the ladies race, ahead of Carol Cashell and Orla Houlihan.
As well as these top swims at the head of the field, there were excellent performances right through the 101 swimmers in challenging conditions. With wind and waves to deal with, it wasn’t an easy swim. To see everyone home safely in 53 minutes was fantastic.
Special mention to two performances on the day. Abby and Drew Lynch – daughters of Bernard and Frank – swam together and finished in the top thirty swimmers. It’s a joy to see this kind of courage and ability in two young girls. Very well done to both of them. Lots more to come from them in the future.
The other performance to mention was at the back of the field. Dan Murphy only learned to swim less than a year ago and has been in Myrtleville continuously all Summer. On Saturday – with support all the way from Carlos Amaja – he completed the course in 53 minutes. It’s a fantastic achievement and should be an encouragement to anyone to take up the sport. Very well done, Dan.
Thanks to Siobhan Russell for capturing the day and for all her hard work. All of the photos are online here.
Trevor Malone – 2nd.
Carol Cashell and Orla Houlihan – 2nd & 3rd Ladies – just as they were at the National Championships last weekend!
Myrtleville Swimmers 