Fionnuala makes history with Channel swim

KILRUSH swimmer Fionnuala Walsh became the first person from Clare and 15th Irish female to successfully swim the English Channel this week.
Before leaving for France, she had amassed more than 1.5 million metres in training.
Following a 15 hours and 26 minutes fundraising swim from Dover to Calais in France on Tuesday, Fionnuala completed her goal. All money raised from her efforts will be donated to Muscular Dystrophy Ireland and Pieta House.
The Kilrush woman personally funded 100% of all costs associated with her challenge.
At 5am on Tuesday morning, Fionnuala slipped into the bitingly cold Channel waters to complete her dream. Guided by a pilot boat, wearing just a swimsuit, cap and goggles, she left Dover to swim the 21-mile distance as the crow flies. However, traffic, weather and tides make the route significantly longer.
This was Fionnuala’s second attempt at the Channel, having had her hopes dashed on August 8 by fog, a couple of hundred metres from French sand.
By successfully swimming the Channel, Fionnuala has become the first person from Clare to achieve this feat, often referred to as ‘the Everest of open water swimming’.
“Naturally, I could never have got this far alone. I am blessed to have a phenomenal family and friends that have supported me all the way on my rollercoaster journey. No need to list you, you know who you are,” Fionnuala commented.
Growing up on the Shannon Estuary, within easy walk of the open-water swimming facilities at Cappa, Kilrush, Fionnuala was part of a community where the annual pilgrimage to Cappa for swimming lessons was a rite of passage. These lessons led to her working as a lifeguard at the White Strand in Miltown Malbay for a summer as a teenager and gave her a great platform for undertaking this week’s mammoth challenge.
In August 1999, Fionnuala sent her first email inquiry to the Channel Swimming Association but it took over a decade before she sent a booking deposit to her pilot in 2010, two years in advance of Tuesday’s swim.
Training for the swim started in earnest in September 2010 and since then Fionnuala has spent countless hours training in pools, lakes and seas but mostly in the Shannon Estuary.