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Club still making a splash 70 years on

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CELEBRATING 70 years in existence this year, the Ennis Swimming and Lifesaving Club has played an integral part in the life of the town.
From the early days of swimming at ‘The Turret’ on the River Fergus to hosting championships at Ennis Leisure Complex, the club has grown immensely over the years.
According to Caitriona McMahon of the Ennis Swimming and Lifesaving Club, “The club has a fabulous heritage of which we are very proud. The club has given a lot to the town through the years.”
It was while researching the history of the club for their application for accreditation under Swim Ireland that it was first realised that this season marks a very special anniversary.
“We had applied for the accreditation and we had to go through a comprehensive process that lasted about a year and a half. Part of that process involved getting background on the club and that’s how all of this started and we realised it was the 70th anniversary. We got the accreditation last November and we are one of only 10 clubs to have this.
“When we started looking at the history of the club, both myself and Michael McGrath got information from many different sources. We got information from Teresa Corcoran, my family, my uncle Jackie Browne and, of course, there were stories I remembered from my late father. John Duggan, Gerry Browne and Clare McGrath also contributed and we got information from Fergus Barron’s book, looking at a century of swimming in Ireland.
“When you look back, it’s clear how much the club has grown and how important it has been for the town. We have a waiting list of between 80 to 100 every year now to join the club. When it first started, everyone from beginners to masters were in the water at the same time. Now we are in the state-of-the-art facility at the leisure complex and we are very lucky in the county to have it. We have a great relationship with the management there,” Caitriona said.
According to the research, the introduction to swimming in Ennis has been recorded by the purchase of a tract of land in the 1920s at an area known as ‘The Turret’, a part of the River Fergus on the Lahinch Road. This gave the local community public access from the bridge to the bend in the river. Subsequently diving platforms were installed at one metre and three-metre heights, along with a concrete entrance platform. This was the main swimming venue in Ennis.
The next official record of swimming was in 1937 with the formation of the Clare Swimming and Lifesaving Association, due to the efforts of Harry Gillespie and John Quinn. It was made up of lifesaving clubs throughout Clare. Their first gala was held in Ballyalla lake on July 2, 1939.
It was not until 1941 that the Ennis Swimming and Lifesaving Club, as its now known, was formed and its first gala was held in ‘The Turret’ in August of that year. Every member of the club was expected to undergo lifesaving instruction and, as a consequence, the club became the strongest lifesaving club in Munster and Ireland, winning innumerable Munster titles, both the Presidents and Central Councils cups, which were the Irish Red Cross Water Safety Sections Irish Championships. County Clare continues through Clare Water Safety to be one of the strongest lifesaving clubs in the country.
“Leading members of the club at that time included Fergus Barron, who we can thank for much of our early history,” explained Caitriona.
In the formative years, the Maurers, Lynchs, Coffeys, Griffins, Barrons and O’Reillys were the driving forces, followed by Conal O’Beirne, Rory O’Connor, Dinny Maurer, John Duggan and Paddy Browne in the 1950s to 1970s. Ennis Swimming and Lifesaving Club training and competitions continued in ‘The Turret’ through the 1950s and 1960s.
In circa 1958-1960, following a tragic local accident, which resulted in the death of Jackie Moloney, a Leaving Cert school boy, his family donated his wallet and the contents to Paddy Browne for his assistance in the recovery of his remains.
This he donated to start a fund so that “there would be no more drownings in Ennis for want of a pool”. The presiding Bishop, Bishop Fogarty whose residence backs onto the Turret, immediately donated the sum of £100 from the parish towards the fund.
A separate pool committee was formed by the local community including Ita O’Shea, Rose O’Shaughnessy, Teresa Corcoran, Dr Bill O’Keeffe, Liam Casey (town clerk), Barry Pickett, Kevin Vaughan, Sean Merry, Dinny Maurer, Paddy Browne and John Duggan, among others.
A suitable site was identified behind the county hospital, which was then being used only as a dump into a swamp. The pool committee raised the purchase price and handed the deeds to Clare County Council in July 1967. Fundraising continued and the pool was built and officially opened in October 1969. The pool committee continued to run the pool, with huge assistance from the swimming club throughout dark winters, until the mid-1970s when the running of the pool as a local amenity was handed over to Clare County Council.
“This brought a new era and new blood to the swimming club when the Murphys and the McGraths took over the helm and this has passed to their children and between generations they have dedicated over 40 years of voluntary service to Ennis Swimming and Lifesaving Club to bring us to where we are today,” she said.
In the late 1990s, Ennis Swimming Club again took up the reins and worked in conjunction with Clare County Council to fundraise and upgrade the pool to the facility that is there today.
As a result, Ennis Swimming and Lifesaving Club has had the privilege of hosting several Munster Championships, the National Division 1 Age Group Championships in 2001 and the Division 2 Age Group Championships in 2002.
The new pool was officially opened on September 5, 2003 by John O’Donoghue, Minister for Arts, Sports and Tourism.
In celebrating the anniversary year, the Ennis Swimming and Lifesaving Club held the Ennis Invitational Gala where Norma Cahill (née Murphy) achieved a new European masters record for the women’s 1,500m freestyle, at her local pool, to which herself and her family have dedicated a lot of years.
The club is now hoping to produce an even more detailed history and are hoping people with memories or information will contact them.
Caitriona paid tribute to “our many contributors who have recalled stories and instances of many years past, to the best of their ability, so that we may in the near future, construct a more detailed history of our club. We would invite any of you with pictures or information that may help us further this, to contact any committee member. We are also hoping at some stage to update the website to include a memory lane section, where people can log in and include their own memories of the club,” she concluded.

 

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