Ann Kennedy from Greystones, Co. Wicklow remembers the baths from circa 1959-1970’s during which time the Otters Swimming Club was a flourishing entity. She wrote this story on Dun Loaghaire Baths when she saw it being pulled down.\u00a0 She and her sisters, Margaret and Louise, spent all of their summers there and loved it.<\/h3>\n
[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/3″]
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/thebaths.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/annauthor.jpg\")
<\/div><\/div> <\/div><\/div>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/thebaths.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/swimmerspodium-768x733.jpg\")
<\/div><\/div> <\/div><\/div>[\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/3″]![\"\"](\"https:\/\/thebaths.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/louisecoaching-1024x824.jpg\")
<\/div><\/div> <\/div><\/div>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/thebaths.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/newspapercutout.jpg\")
<\/div><\/div> <\/div><\/div>[\/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/4″][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/12″][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row padding_top_multiplier=”” padding_bottom_multiplier=”3x” rc_bg_type=”color” separator_top_size=”60%” separator_top_color=”#f6f7fc” separator_bottom_size=”40%” separator_bottom_color=”#f6f7fc” rc_bg_color=”#ebfcfd”][vc_column width=”1\/6″ tablet_width=”1-6″ mobile_width=”hide”][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”2\/3″ text_align=”center” tablet_width=”2-3″][vc_column_text]<\/p>\nDun Laoghaire Baths Coming Down<\/h2>\n
[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n
By Ann Kennedy<\/p>\n
[\/vc_column_text]
I watched my childhood breaking down.\u00a0The dinosaur ate chunks, bite by bite.\u00a0Lying lost for decades, dead in minutes.\u00a0It was coming down.<\/p>\n
My twin sister, Margaret, our older sister, Louise, and I, met the\u00a059 bus from Killiney to Dun Laoghaire outside our house every morning at 9.45. This was the routine drafted for summer days when school was out.\u00a0Tucked under our oxters were rolled towels like jam roly-polys, encasing plastic swimming caps more fitting airmen of bygone days.\u00a0Our \u2018togs\u2019 were bunched into this leathery shell.<\/p>\n
On alighting the bus, we raced through the Park at Sandycove, screaming, to the large door where children were pouring down from all corners of south county Dublin. A turnstile let us in.\u00a0A wire basket grabbed our clothes. In the changing cubicles, we stripped naked, feeling the frost bite like ginger snaps on the sea breeze. We stood on a surface I was never keen on. I can still smell its rancid pong, its dark stickiness.\u00a0Hygiene was dubious, but no one ever got sick from going to Dun Laoghaire Baths.<\/p>\n
The baskets were dumped with a grey-haired lady. We gawked at the slab of slate by the high diving-board, where temperatures warned us of the day ahead – chilly or chillier, freezing or cold, but never warm. Running to read it, our toes attempted to hold the ground, an art in itself.\u00a0\u00a0Water from the men\u2019s hoses had sloshed the deck with chlorine first, then drenched it with speeds of spray, to sanitize and debug the baths. Giggles ran with the wind.<\/p>\n
A long bank of concrete ran along the back wall, where we sat in between swims. The summers were hot and sticky, the air fresh with salty spray.\u00a0Giggling girls melting into a white-washed slab.\u00a0Naked legs toasting red, pink and white flowery togs. The Otters\u2019 Swimming Club bedecked, brandished like a national flag against the stark lime painted walls.<\/p>\n
For the little ones, it was the far end, the baby pool, or junior infants, but never on the wall with the Otters. I learnt to swim by lying flat on a small lump of cement, pretending, like an airman lost for his plane and his wings.<\/p>\n
Time passed and we graduated onto the big pool.\u00a0We felt all grown up and water smart, but I was still jelly-fishy.\u00a0A limpet, lank thing, I wished for the sun to melt me away.\u00a0It didn\u2019t happen.\u00a0I enjoyed it the best I could. In the evening, tired children, wet, cold and chilled, headed home.\u00a0Home to our Mums and Dads.\u00a0Home for a bite of food.<\/p>\n
About to take my first dive one day, I summoned the back block and a particular Otter sitting there. \u201cLouise, LOOK!\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0LOOK Louise!\u201d<\/em> I cried to my sister, three years older, an Otter of significant status, in my eyes.<\/p>\n She came down and towered beside me.<\/p>\n I pointed my joined hands to the water.\u00a0Wedged my head between my arms, created a statuesque stance, seconds before possible flight. Stinging like shattered glass, a brat of a lad let fly and I was catapulted into icy water belly face down. It hurt. A lot. Louise let out a roar of disapproval and the lad ran as fast as he could, then disappeared without guilt.<\/p>\n I didn\u2019t try it again. My confidence had washed away and I was a deflated beached whale.\u00a0I sat the day nursing a redness a lobster on a grill would die for.<\/p>\n We all competed, if we joined\u00a0the Otters. Margaret, my twin, hadn\u2019t dived yet.\u00a0This was my chance to claim \u2018champion\u2019 knowing\u00a0a dive can knock the socks off those who were too timid to do so. Alas, she tipped the other end an inch before me almost always, despite the push-off on that far back wall.\u00a0Disgusted, I never adequately described the feeling.<\/p>\n We both entered for the\u00a0Personal Survival Awards.\u00a0Bronze level.\u00a0A. I am a marked lady from this event, without a doubt. It took place during the daytime, and the Baths were closed to the public.\u00a0We trembled, as the event began.\u00a0Our maiden solo flight from the high board was about to begin.\u00a0We entered\u00a0the \u2018simulation\u2019 of being a drowning rat some place you shouldn\u2019t be drowning, and had to save ourselves.<\/p>\n Procrastination found me flinging out last. I hit the surface with a fright and swallowed half the bay and coughed horribly. I slapped the skirt up above and caught the fresh cold air under it.\u00a0This was my life buoy. I threaded water for three minutes.\u00a0God, I had hoped would help me after that, if the rescue took longer to navigate this or that emergency.<\/p>\n At any four-minute mark, no one need send the lifeboats.\u00a0I was ten feet under by that time. The next marking to my spirit and soul of endeavor was going to be the challenge never forgotten. Diving down under the water, I swam three yards.\u00a0The aim was to miss the bottom belly of the U boat, but I hit the grey gun-metal, every time, and was morto<\/em>. I should rightly be dead by now. It was a lesson in determination, character building and experience, which lasted a lifetime. Laughing from our wheelchairs today, agitated by this memory, Margaret and I get all hot and bothered.\u00a0It took so long for us to achieve this award, I wonder still, if we were let pass an inch short of the Bronze Standard.<\/p>\n Evenings were cold in the Baths, an east wind whipping into everyone\u2019s tiredness, we twins were ordered out and the medals shoved into our paws. \u201cGo home, well done,\u201d<\/em> we were told. We did.<\/p>\n The Otters\u2019 bench produced an Olympian, an International and a Masters champion, still dunking down at the Forty Foot as\u00a0\u2018the larger than life\u2019, Claire Small, nee O\u2019Dwyer. Everyone\u2019s dread, yet a type of initiation to bravery, Vicky Smith got stung by a lion\u2019s mane and ended in St Michaels Hospital. Louise, my sister, swam for Ireland at the age of sixteen. Built tough, she graduated to teaching half of Dublin to swim, not drown. A formidable teacher, she took no prisoners, with a voice so loud, it startled.\u00a0As an adult, I was at the receiving end many times.<\/p>\n You didn\u2019t get tired in Louise Kennedy\u2019s classes.\u00a0You didn\u2019t get out early. A sister could claim no privilege.<\/p>\n \u201cWhere are you going?\u201d\u00a0<\/em>she\u2019d bellow.<\/p>\n \u201cOut\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cGet back in.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cGet back in.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n You didn\u2019t answer a second time.<\/p>\n Louise had learnt her art in Dun Laoghaire Baths.<\/p>\n Swimming good and godly in the clouds above now, my wonderful sister died far too young. The stunned\u00a0community watched the cortege.\u00a0Children of children who grew up with her lined the roads in mystified horror.\u00a0We drove after her that day to grandfather\u2019s grave. Daddy died a year later.<\/p>\n The Baths was the premier entertainment of kids in \u2018them days.\u2019 It is remembered for icy waters and lots of fun. Running like flashing flipping fish over to Teddys\u2019 bare-footed, we had no worries of glass or antibiotics. We beat the hot tarmac, dripping wet, for flash bars, Peggy\u2019s legs, aniseed balls or licorice. Running back to our lines of skinny legs, blue-turning toes and pursed lips, we licked and slobbered and got into the pool for more punishment. It was Siberia,<\/p>\n Clark\u2019s sandals were buckled on.\u00a0Shivering, the goose bumps were as great as any measles rash. Long hair hung in slimy sodden strands. We sucked at the tips of them and waited for the Killiney bus, out of our minds with exhaustion and cold. We hugged the wet towels for relief.\u00a0It had been a great day at the Baths. When we arrived home, togs were pegged on the clothesline, flapping madly.\u00a0We sat down for the wonderful dinner Mum had made.<\/p>\n The next morning, the sun broke the sky at dawn and the day began again. The Killiney bus arrived at\u00a09.45 a.m.\u00a0and three girls boarded it. We were off to Dun Laoghaire Baths.<\/p>\n Now, the jaws of the dinosaur are shaking the air in a thunderous earthquake.\u00a0The summer is turning to fragments of memory; the dust stinging my eyes.\u00a0The solid old soldier, warrior, airman, is bitten alive, to be no more.<\/p>\n [\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/6″ tablet_width=”1-6″ mobile_width=”hide”][\/vc_column][vc_column mobile_width=”hide”] Margaret and Ann Kennedy<\/p>\n [\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/6″][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [vc_row rc_bg_type=”color” columns_gap=”60″ rc_bg_color=”#c0e3e5″][vc_column width=”1\/12″][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”7\/12″ text_align=”center”][vc_column_text] Ann Kennedy from Greystones, Co. Wicklow remembers the baths from circa 1959-1970’s during which time the Otters Swimming Club was a flourishing entity. She wrote this story on Dun Loaghaire Baths when she saw it being pulled down.\u00a0 She and her sisters, Margaret and Louise, spent all of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-6444","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebaths.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebaths.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebaths.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebaths.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebaths.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6444"}],"version-history":[{"count":82,"href":"https:\/\/thebaths.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6444\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7708,"href":"https:\/\/thebaths.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6444\/revisions\/7708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebaths.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/thebaths.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/louisenewspaper1.jpg\")
<\/div><\/div> <\/div><\/div>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/thebaths.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/winningcup.jpg\")
<\/div><\/div> <\/div><\/div>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/thebaths.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/sisters.jpg\")
<\/div><\/div> <\/div><\/div>[vc_column_text]<\/p>\n