Discovering one young man in the Grand Canal in the early hours is strange enough - finding two is something else again, writes Mary Russell
The Dublin section of the Grand Canal is at its best very early in the morning when the water is calm, reflecting the electric blue of the Luas station, the navy blue of the pre-dawn sky, with a bright star still shining there, the red brake lights of the few cars out and about at that hour, and the swans, heads folded away, floating peacefully like plump white pillows on its surface. What better place to be - except possibly tucked up safely in a warm bed? Certainly not in the ice-cold water of the canal itself.
Walking along it a few weeks ago, it was a shout that caught my ear. When I peered down into the dark waters, the shape of a pale face emerged from among the murk of the rushes. Then the man, up to his chest in water and arms above his head, turned and waded out towards the middle of the canal.
You look around, wondering what to do, what to say. "Good morning" seemed a bit formal and "Hi!" too cheery given the circumstances. I know, I told myself - trying to make sense of this bizarre scene - he's an all-year-round swimmer acclimatising ahead of some Arctic triathlon.
Oh yeah, said my more sensible brain, so why's he wearing an anorak? It was then my bossy bit kicked in: "Okay," I shouted, "out, now. It's too cold to be in there. Out!" But instead, he ploughed up the canal, turned and then ploughed back again, up and down as if doomed to wade forever through some watery purgatory. "If he goes under," I told myself, "you're not going in. You hear? You haven't even started wrapping the Christmas presents yet." I tried to flag a few cars but none stopped. Well, would you - for a lone woman carrying a saxophone case, at 5.30am on a winter's day? I crossed to the other side of the canal, where the bank was lower, and coaxed the man over to me then grabbed hold of him, but he was a dead weight. Suddenly a Chinese waiter from the nearby hotel came running. We hauled the man onto the grass, where he lay like a waterlogged leaf until the ambulance took him away. Who was he? I have no idea.
I caught my bus and my plane and forgot about it all until a week later, walking along the same stretch of the canal to catch the airport bus again - and yes, you've guessed it. Two hands clawed themselves over the low wall of the canal, tried to get a hold of it, failed, and slipped back down into the water again. This time, it was 4.30am, no one around but me and the monster from the swamp. Except that it wasn't a monster - just another man in the water. This one was out too, with a helping hand, and on his way.
Two young men, maybe in their twenties, both in the water for reasons best known to themselves, one of them spaced out - disorientated, face blank, uncommunicative.
"You'd be surprised what we fish out of the canal," says a spokesperson for Waterways Ireland. "We take 20 tonnes of rubbish out of the Royal and the Grand canals every year, not counting cars, freezers and washing machines. Sometimes, we have to dredge them if the gardaí think something like drugs has been dumped. The worst is when our lads have to fish people out. That's terrible."
Waterways Ireland has tried to get the balance right, between giving people access to the water and making it safe. Now, there are chains on the walls of the locks so that if someone goes in and it's too deep to reach them, they can grab the chains. That's if they want to. Many young people who attempt to take their own lives do so by drowning.
"The problem," says Suzanne Costello, director of Samaritans Ireland, "is that alcohol can cloud the senses so that a person in the water won't realise they are freezing cold. Or if they're in a psychiatric crisis, their coping strategy is diminished."
It's not a crime to be in the canal. "We wouldn't get involved," a local garda told me, "unless the person was a danger to themselves or to others." But no, he had never heard of two such incidents happening so close to each other.
Friends were full of advice: "It could be your proper job, pulling people out," said one. "Yes," said another, "and you could ask for an assistant." Add it up, though: young men, Christmas, easy access to drink or drugs - and to the canal - and you won't always get the right answer.
Some years back, my son was driving up from London to Holyhead, coming back for Christmas, and failed to show up at Holyhead. Disappeared right off the radar. Checks at hospitals and police stations drew a blank. Six hours later the phone call came and the walk from the kitchen chair to the phone on top of the fridge was the longest one I've ever made. Seven steps in all because I checked it again today. And then I heard the two words I most wanted to hear: "Hi, Mum." He'd turned his car over three times but because no other car was involved, neither were the police.
If you're a young man and likely to be near water over the next week or two, all I can say is stay safe. And just don't end up in the canal, you hear, because I'm not on duty this Christmas.
Samaritans give emotional support on 1850-609090