Forty Foot

This article is about the promontory near Dublin. For river in Cambridgeshire, see Forty Foot Drain. For the Canadian band and their debut album, see Forty Foot Echo.

The Forty Foot is a promontory on the southern tip of Dublin Bay at Sandycove, County Dublin, Ireland, from which people have been swimming in the Irish Sea all year round for some 250 years.

Use

In former times it was kept solely as a gentlemen's bathing place and the gentlemen's swimming club was established to help conserve the area. Owing to its isolation and gender-specific nature it became a popular spot for nudists, but in the 1970s during the women's liberation movement, a group of female equal-rights activists plunged into the waters, now it is open to women and children as well. The gentlemen's swimming club still exists and is open to both genders, it expects voluntary contributions to the upkeep of the area. Many people believe that swimming in the extremely cold water is healthful.

Name

There is no definite explanation for the origin of the name. It has been speculated that it may have been called the Forty Foot after the 42nd Highland Regiment of Foot (now known as the Black Watch), a regiment of the British Army, which is said to have been stationed here. Other suggestions forwarded include the depth of the water (actually less than 40 feet) and the width of the road leading to the bathing place.

In literature

James Joyce and Oliver St. John Gogarty once resided at the Martello tower together. It is now the James Joyce Tower and Museum. The opening section of Joyce's Ulysses is set here, with the characters Stephen Dedalus and Buck Mulligan being partly based on Joyce himself and Gogarty, respectively. Buck Mulligan described the sea as "The snotgreen sea. The scrotumtightening sea."

The Forty Foot also featured in the novels At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O'Brien (1939) and At Swim, Two Boys by Jamie O'Neill (2001).

External links

• Information about tides and conditions for sea swimmers at Fortyfoot