Search Results for 'Joe Hegarty'

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.

Prior to 1961, public performance of Irish traditional music in Galway took place primarily in the form of céilís in large dancehalls — namely in the Hangar, the Commercial and the Astaire. These were enormously popular — remember the hundreds of bicycles parked outside the Hangar on a Sunday night — but they began to go out of fashion in the sixties and were regarded as old fashioned and backward.

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.