Liffey Swim under threat over insurance issue and ongoing dispute

This year’s historic Liffey swim, which is over 100 years old, is under threat over an insurance issue and ongoing dispute within swimming.

The annual race, one of Ireland’s most famous traditional sporting events, is currently uninsured, with organisers claiming it, along with other sea swimming events, cannot proceed until the matter is resolved.

Open water swimming is an Olympic event and has been part of the Olympic roster since the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008.

The Liffey race is managed by a voluntary not-for-profit organisation, Leinster Open Sea (LOS), who organise the sea swimming events throughout the summer and are affiliated to Swim Ireland.

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However, LOS currently have a serious difference of opinion with the governing body, who wish to overhaul their affiliate’s constitution.

A letter from LOS dated May 9th, 2023 and sent out to clubs ahead of a meeting with Swim Ireland, to which LOS say it was not invited, highlights the insurance issue.

“With only three weeks to go to the start of the sea race season, Swim Ireland are refusing to affiliate Leinster Open Sea and are seeking over 70 amendments to Leinster Open Sea’s constitution which was submitted and accepted by Swim Ireland in 2020.

“Swim Ireland have stated they will not provide insurance cover for races run by or in conjunction with Leinster Open Sea unless Leinster Open Sea complies with Swim Ireland’s full demands without compromise.”

[ Liffey Swim 2022: In pictures ]

The swim in the Liffey is one of the last in a season of 30 events around the coast. The 100th race took place in 2019, starting at the Guinness Brewery and finishing at North Wall Quay in front of the Custom House. The only year it did not take place was in 2020 because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The first swim took place in July 1920 with 28 male swimmers competing before Jack B Yeats famously captured the event in his 1923 painting “The Liffey Swim”.

The piece won Yeats the silver medal for painting at the art competition in the 1924 Summer Olympic Games and is now in the National Gallery.

An annual women’s race on the course under the Liffey bridges was not introduced until 1991 and has been held since then as a separate race as part of the Liffey Swim programme. But for many years before, Catholic Archbishop of Dublin John Charles McQuaid opposed the idea of women racing.

In the letter LOS ask Swim Ireland to wait until this sea race season is over, when both bodies can then have negotiations with an independent mediator to resolve this dispute.

Furthermore, it asks Swim Ireland “to continue to provide insurance cover for the races run by and in conjunction with Leinster Open Sea swims in the 2023 season.”

In response Swim Ireland issued a short statement.

“Swim Ireland are currently looking at internal structures around Open Water Swimming including governance, health and safety, processes and the wants from our clubs,” it said.

“We are in the process of speaking to all relevant and interested parties and it is our intention that the 2023 Liffey Swim will go ahead.”

The 100th edition of the event held in 2019 had the highest number of men finishing, 364 and the highest number of women finishing, 252. The youngest ever male winner of the Liffey Swim, Francis “Chalkey” White, a well-known figure in Irish swimming circles, won the race in 1966 at age 11.

A number of Irish Olympians have also won the race including Donnacha O’Dea (1963, 1965), who competed in the Mexico City Olympics in 1968. Kevin Williamson, who swam in freestyle events in Montreal in 1976 and Moscow four years later was a winner in 2000.