Search Results for 'Jimmy Cranny'

Jimmy Cranny was born in Dublin in 1905. He was orphaned early in life, came to Galway when he was eight and it became his home from then on. He grew up to be a champion swimmer, a winner of the Prom Swim and a springboard diving champion of Connacht. He was a member of the Royal Lifesaving Society and became one of their first lifeguards. He later joined the Irish Red Cross.

Swimming is the self-propulsion of a person through water as a form of recreation, exercise or survival. It has numerous health benefits and is good for all ages and all levels of fitness. It is among the top public recreational activities. One can swim in the sea, the lake or river.

On January 15, 1827 two Patrician Brothers, Paul O’Connor and James Walsh, took up residence in Lombard Street and set up the Monastery School. The attendance on that first day was 300 boys, many of whom had little interest in learning because they were poor and hungry. So the Brothers set up The Poor Boy’s Breakfast Institute in May 1830. It continued seven days a week, 365 days a year for many years after the founders' time. The breakfast consisted of porridge with molasses or treacle, and during the Famine, they fed 1,000 boys every day. The ‘Old Mon’ became a vital cog in education in Galway.

Organised water safety in Ireland really began in Milltown Malbay, Co Clare in the 1930s when a lady drowned there. This galvanised the local community into forming a Water Safety Association to help swimmers who got into trouble. The idea spread through Co Clare and eventually to the whole country. The national water safety section, set up by the government, was run by the Red Cross.

The front page story on the first ever issue of the Galway Advertiser in 1970 was about the announcement of plans for a proposed new leisure centre to be situated between Revagh Road in Rockbarton and the Promenade.

The Penny Dinners committee was a name given to a voluntary group who used to provide free dinners for 40 to 80 impoverished children four times per week in the late 1920s and early 1930s. In fact the title was a misnomer, in no sense were they penny dinners. The children could not afford to give a penny for them, nor could the committee provide a dinner for a penny. The funding for these meals came from the people of Galway and also from fundraising productions they put on, mostly in the Columban Hall.

Ninety years ago, on August 2, 1931, the world famous long-distance swimmer, Miss Mercedes Gleitz, attempted to swim from the Aran Islands to Salthill. She did in fact manage to swim from Inis Meán to Spiddal in 18 hours 43 minutes, a distance of 18 miles as the crow flies, but it was estimated that with currents, etc, she covered a distance of nearly 30 miles. Two days later she gave a swimming demonstration in Salthill and presented a cup to the Chamber of Commerce to be presented to the school in the county which presented the greatest number of swimmers in relation to its student numbers. She stimulated a lot of interest in the sport, which had received a terrific boost just a few months before with the formation of two clubs, Blackrock Swimming Club and Galway Swimming Club. This guaranteed competition between the clubs and quickly helped raise standards.

The ladies and children’s bathing pools in Salthill were blessed by Canon Davis in 1930. These were two linked tidal pools which filled up when the tide came in and emptied when the tide went out. The floors were of sand so they were a perfect playground for children even when they had dried out. Thousands of children and adults learned how to swim there with Jimmy Cranny of Galway Swimming Club and Christy Dooley of Blackrock Swimming Club teaching organised groups on alternate evenings throughout the summer.

The decision to close the public swimming pool in Leisureland is simply a step too far and must be reversed, that is according to Galway West TD Catherine Connolly.

Tuesday November 20, 1984, was a sad day in Galway. It was the day Jimmy Cranny died, and though he had no family, his extended family of many thousands of people he had taught to swim mourned him and marked the passing of a legend. He could be seen at the seashore virtually every evening of the summer for many, many, years teaching children the basics of swimming, and as some of them progressed to competitive swimming, he provided early morning training sessions for them at the canal on a daily basis.