EXQUISITE TORTURE

Ned Denison runs the legendary Cork Distance Week training camp in Ireland, where swimmers contend with whirlpools, jellyfish swarms and dead seagulls – as well as the infamous ‘torture swim’. Crispin Thorold braved the waters of Sandycove

Crispin Thorold

Ned Denison checks swimmers into the water

Sandycove – a small, grassy and windswept island just off the south coast of Ireland – is easy to miss. It’s only 200 metres from shore, and is nestled in the western entrance to Kinsale harbour in County Cork. Until not so long ago the island was known mainly for its resident flock of feral white goats, but one day in 1995 a man visiting from Dublin decided to try to swim around it. From that adventure, Sandycove has developed into one of the main global hubs for Channel swimmers.

So far 136 people have circumnavigated Sandycove and completed an English Channel solo, a record for training grounds that is probably only surpassed by Dover harbour. Sandycove is also the base for Cork Distance Week, the very toughest of Channel swimming camps, which over the course of nine days challenges even the most established marathoners with cold-water swims in jellyfishinfested seas, through inland lakes, up brackish rivers and through rapids. And that is before mention of the infamous torture swim.

Local storytellers, and this being Ireland there is no shortage of those, say that sea swimming has been a part of life in Kinsale for centuries. The Kinsale Distance Swimmers, in their official history, claim that in 1692 a secret allmale society was formed that involved night-time swims at high tide to slip into the port unnoticed. Tradition has it that members of the British military who were garrisoned near the port town swam, from their bases, through the dark waters of high tide, to enjoy the pleasures of drink and the company of “agreeable” women at the town’s taverns.