"We had to break the ice on the water a couple of times when we got to the pool but generally it doesn't come to that. It's freezing all right but once you're in it's grand. It's all just a bit of a laugh."
There are probably warmer ways to get laughs but for Eithne Kenny and a hardy group of swimmers, the annual Rehab Christmas swim is as much an integral part of Christmas Day as Santa Claus and tinsel.
Eithne, who has represented Ireland in the World Cross Country Championships, has been involved in the annual swim since 1969. "It's a family tradition to do the Christmas Swim - there are seven of us altogether, five girls and two boys, and since 1969 we've been going out with my father on Christmas morning for the dip. My mother would stay at home and get Christmas dinner ready for us all to come back to.
"There's a great atmosphere there every year, we all know it's a bit of madness but it's fun. It's like an annual re-union and, even now when some of us have families of our own, we'd meet at the baths on Christmas morning. There's soup afterwards to warm you up, and a lot of old faces to catch up with - we all love it.
"It is passing down now to a third generation my sister Medbh's son Mark will be doing it this year; he's 13. His sister Michelle is also a superb swimmer; she won the Irish Schools' Championship a few weeks ago and the Leinster Championship as well. She's only 10 but maybe she'll do the Christmas Swim in a few years too. Mark has done the Liffey Swim for the past two years it's brilliant to see a new generation come up and have the same interest in it that we all had."
In its present format, however, the Rehab Christmas Swim would appear to be an endangered tradition, following the closure of the Blackrock Baths and now the imminent shutting of the outdoor pool at Dun Laoghaire. Fergus Barron, former president of the Irish Swimming Association, has been involved in the event since its inception in 1957 in a small private cove at Seapoint.
"The swim moved to Blackrock Baths in 1964 but when they closed up completely in 1993 we held it in Dun Laoghaire - this will be the final year we can have it there though, so we have to rethink the whole thing. It is very difficult to have it actually in the sea itself because the tides change so much and therefore it would be impossible to have it each year at noon so we could let people get back for their Christmas lunch. It's a bit of a problem."
The solution he and Deborah Ryan, secretary of the Dublin Swimming Club, have come up with is a St Stephen's Day Triathalon - of sorts. According to Fergus Barron, the idea is "to swim, run and cycle on the beach but if the tides are not right then instead of swimming you'd just run through the water at whatever depth it was at around noon. We think it would be better to have it on St Stephen's Day because people have more time - it's not a championship, it's just a bit of fun, and everything is such a rush on Christmas Day. There would be more time maybe to socialise after the race if we had it then."
So, the Christmas Wade-In instead of the Christmas Swim? Olympic swimmer and commentator Gary O'Toole did the swim in 1990 and would be sorry to see it go. "It would be terribly sad if it had to end; it's such a traditional part of Christmas for a lot of people. There is something very historical about the swim; it has far more significance than a simple dip in the sea.
"I did the swim as a favour to a friend in Rehab - I don't like swimming in the sea particularly but I enjoyed it. It was absolutely freezing. I don't think I've ever been so cold in my life, so cold, in fact, that I'd have to think fairly seriously about doing it again but I'm very glad to have done it. The sponsorship side of it makes it a very good, though maybe slightly mad, way of raising money for Rehab."
THE sponsorship clement is one of the main reasons both Deborah Ryan and Fergus Barron are so determined to retain the swim in whatever guise possible. "It is very important to bring in as much money for Rehab as we can" Ryan says. "If a lot of people participate, we can turn a Christmas dip into a very worthy means of raising money at Christmas.
Numbers have been dropping steadily over the years, however; from a peak of 39 men and 22 women in 1977, last year's swim saw just 11 men and six women turn up. Barron attributes the fall in numbers to the comforts of indoor pools. "Plastic swimmers" is the term the hardened outdoor swimmers use to describe them.
"Salt water and fresh air" and then home for Christmas lunch" prescribes Pat O'Driscoll, a pilot with Aer Lingus who first did the swim in 1969 at the age of nine. He has subsequently swum in the men's race every year (he has won it six times, over three separate decades), with the exception of the year he got stuck in Christmas traffic and turned up as the 30-second race was ending.
"It is so short in itself, that really the worst part is the stripping off and waiting to go in the shock of the cold water is something else but there are ways to acclimatise. Funnily enough, it's when the back of your neck hits the water that you start to panic a little bit; your breathing changes too quickly, so all you have to do is dab some water on the nape of your neck before you get in, and it's fine. It barely lasts any time at all, then you have a whiskey and go home to your lunch completely prepared for an afternoon of Christmas vegetating."
O'Driscoll goes each year with his father, though it is only Pat who does the swim. "My father used to be a fisherman and he can't swim all that well but we go together each Christmas morning and he catches up with a lot of his friends. They have a few whiskeys together at the pool - a lot of people come down just to do that.
"My wife used to come down too, to watch, but now we have three small children and they're up from seven with Santa and everything so we tend to go to Mass the night before and then go down to her family in separate cars and I go off with my Dad for a couple of hours to do the swim. By 2.30 p.m. or so the whole family is together again for Christmas, dinner so in fact it doesn't disrupt the day at all, even with very young kids. It's a tradition really I wouldn't miss it for the world."
All those who do it seem to retain the fondest memories of the day. Ken Higgins now works in Brussels as the sales manager for an American multinational but did a similar dip at the Forty Foot when he was 19.
"I did it about eight or nine years ago. A friend of mine suggested we do it for the laugh, so we stripped off and plunged in. I lasted about 10 seconds. It was the coldest I've ever been. I was barely able to do the buttons on my shirt I was so numb. Then we got warmed up with a drop of whiskey and went home and ate like animals. I'm back in Ireland for Christmas this year though and I'd do it again no bother. It'd be great."
ONE of the most appealing aspects of the whole endeavour would seem to be its accessibility, no matter your age or swimming prowess. "The races are fun," says Claire O'Dwyer who, under her maiden name of Small, was the first name engraved on the Women's Race Trophy on its inauguration in 1964. This year she broke two world records and four European Records at the World Masters Swimming Championships in the 55-59 age category. At the time of winning the first Women's Race in 1964 she was Irish Freestyle Champion, and has competed internationally ever since. Hers is one of the strongest loyalties to the Christmas Swim.
"I've swum in the race so many, times now over the past 30 years - it's one way of getting out of making, the Christmas lunch I suppose. It is a form of madness but nonetheless people appear from nowhere each year and congregate at it, the atmosphere is just wonderful. People come from abroad for it. I'll be out there at Dun Laoghaire Baths on Christmas morning this year without a doubt - it is one of the highlights of Christmas."
With the closure of both Blackrock and Dun Laoghaire Baths, this could be the final year to enjoy the tingling pleasures of a Christmas Day dip in the sea for Rehab. There's talk of moving the event out to the pier at Poolbeg Lighthouse, where the Half-Moon Swimming Club already holds its own Christmas Swim, or heading out to Clontarf, Pool, again an open-air sea-pool. The St Stephen's Day Triathalon however, seems to be the most likely solution to the closures, making December 25th, 1996 the last Christmas Swim at Dun Laoghaire. If you go, whatever you do, don't forget the whiskey.
