The future of Dublin’s two most prestigious open air swimming competitions is in doubt due to a turf war between two swimming organisations.
Swim Ireland and Leinster Open Sea (LOS) made rival bids to run this year’s Liffey Swim, due to take place next month, and the Dún Laoghaire Harbour Race, which is scheduled for Sunday.
LOS, a voluntary not-for-profit organisation, which has operated both events for many years, has accused swimming’s governing body of trying to wrest control of sea swimming events due to the increasing popularity of the sport.
Swim Ireland said the relationship between it and LOS “broke down due to governance and other concerns” and Swim Ireland had “made the difficult decision not to recognise or affiliate the Leinster Open Sea club for the current season”.
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The organisations had been in a mediation process relating to disputes over the constitution of LOS, Swim Ireland’s affiliation process and disagreements in relation to insurance cover provided by Swim Ireland for races. With no resolution in sight, LOS, which has a membership of more than 20 sea swimming clubs, said it decided to secure its own insurance ahead of this year’s racing season, which began in May.
Despite this, Brian Nolan, who runs the major events division of LOS, said it had remained in the mediation process with a view to submitting joint applications for the Dún Laoghaire and Liffey Swims. However, Mr Nolan said it emerged last month that Swim Ireland had submitted separate applications to run the events.
“We were completely blindsided that they would undermine the mediation process like that and essentially try to push us out of races we’ve been running for years.”
Constituent clubs of LOS wrote to Swim Ireland asking that it withdraw the applications, Mr Nolan said. When it refused, LOS made the decision to withdraw its own application for the harbour swim.
“The Harbour Authorities reserve one day a year for a swimming race in Dún Laoghaire Harbour. LOS has excellent working relations with the Harbour Authorities and felt Swim Ireland put the Harbour Authorities in an unfair situation. Therefore, we withdrew our application.”
Mr Nolan said he expected the harbour race to be a much reduced field as many of the LOS clubs had decided not to participate. However, he said LOS would not be retracting its application for the Liffey Swim.
“Our event is tried and tested, we have the experience, we’ve been running it for years. This is the 100th anniversary of Jack B Yeats winning the Olympic silver medal for his painting The Liffey Swim and we have already commissioned replica medals that will be presented to all finishers of our annual historic Liffey Swim which will take place on September 21st.”
Swim Ireland said it had secured September 7th as the date for the Liffey Swim.
In a statement on Friday, Swim Ireland said it did “hugely appreciate and respect the massive volunteer effort by members” of the LOS committee but was “adamant that there must be a proper framework and appropriate governance in place for the affiliation by Swim Ireland”.
It said LOS was currently “not affiliated to any other governing body and are therefore currently operating without any clear oversight and accountability”.
The harbour swim would go ahead on Sunday, Swim Ireland said. “Further discussions will take place in the coming weeks in relation to the Dublin City Liffey Swim following the Olympic Games in Paris.”
Dublin City Council said its role was to facilitate the safe delivery of outdoor events in the city centre, including those on the Liffey. “This involves engagement with various statutory agencies and DCC departments to ensure that everyone involved is satisfied with all aspects of the planning process, after which a decision notice is issued.”
The Liffey and harbour swims were the “All-Ireland finals of the sea swimming community in Ireland”, Mr Nolan said.
“We would like Swim Ireland to respect that, respect the historic value of these races, and respect that we have the experience to run these races.”
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