Forty Foot | |
|---|---|
  Forty Foot  Forty Foot | |
| Coordinates: 53°17′22″N6°06′49″W / 53.28944°N 6.11361°W Coordinates: 53°17′22″N6°06′49″W / 53.28944°N 6.11361°W | |
| Grid position | O 25829 28205 |
| Part of | Dublin Bay |
| Dimensions | |
| • Depth | 20 ft (6.1 m) at high tide |
The Forty Foot (Irish : Cladach an Daichead Troigh) [1] 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. [2] [3]
The name "Forty Foot" is somewhat obscure. On an 1833 map, the Marine Road (located 1.5 km (0.93 mi) to the west) was named the Forty Foot Road, possibly because it was 40 ft (12 m) wide; the name may have been transferred to the swimming place, which was called the Forty-Foot Hole in the 19th century. [4] [5]
Other accounts claim the name was given by fishermen because it was forty feet (6+2⁄3 fathoms) deep, but the water in the area is no deeper than 20 ft (6.1 m; 3.3 fathoms). [6] Others have attempted to link it to the 40th (the 2nd Somersetshire) Regiment of Foot, who supposedly bathed there, but they were stationed at Richmond Barracks in Inchicore. [7] [8] [9] [10]
At first, it was exclusively a male bathing place, and Sandycove Bathers Association, a men's swimming club was established. [3] Owing to its relative isolation and gender-restrictions it became a popular spot for nudists. [3] On 24 July 1974, about a dozen of female equal-rights activists ("Dublin City Women’s Invasion Force") went swimming, and sat with placards. [11] and later, including less than five women, swam nude, in 1989, [12] now swimming is open to men, women, and children. In 2014, the Sandycove Bathers Association ended the ban on women club members, [11] and they may now use the onsite changing rooms and clubhouse kitchen. [13] The swimming club requests voluntary contributions for the upkeep of the area. [3]
Death, near-drowning and hypothermia have resulted from swimming at Forty Foot. [14] [15] [16] [17]
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), At Swim, Two Boys by Jamie O'Neill (2001) and Nessuna notizia dello scrittore scomparso by Daniele Bresciani (2017).
The Forty Foot is featured in the series Bad Sisters . [18]
In the 2023 documentary film Bono & The Edge: A Sort of Homecoming, With Dave Letterman , David Letterman visits the location, which ends up serving as inspiration for the composition of a song by Bono and the Edge called "40 Foot Man" featured in the credits of show. [19]
Ulysses is a modernist novel by Irish writer James Joyce. Parts of it were first serialized in the American journal The Little Review from March 1918 to December 1920, and the entire work was published in Paris by Sylvia Beach on 2 February 1922, Joyce's fortieth birthday. It is considered one of the most important works of modernist literature and has been called "a demonstration and summation of the entire movement." According to Declan Kiberd, "Before Joyce, no writer of fiction had so foregrounded the process of thinking."
Bloomsday is a commemoration and celebration of the life of Irish writer James Joyce, observed annually in Dublin and elsewhere on 16 June, the day his 1922 novel Ulysses takes place in 1904, the date of his first sexual encounter with his wife-to-be, Nora Barnacle, and named after its protagonist Leopold Bloom.
Dublin Bay is a C-shaped inlet of the Irish Sea on the east coast of Ireland. The bay is about 10 kilometres wide along its north–south base, and 7 km in length to its apex at the centre of the city of Dublin; stretching from Howth Head in the north to Dalkey Point in the south. North Bull Island is situated in the northwest part of the bay, where one of two major inshore sand banks lay, and features a 5 km long sandy beach, Dollymount Strand, fronting an internationally recognised wildfowl reserve. Many of the rivers of Dublin reach the Irish Sea at Dublin Bay: the River Liffey, with the River Dodder flow received less than 1 km inland, River Tolka, and various smaller rivers and streams.
Dalkey is an affluent suburb of Dublin, and a seaside resort southeast of the city, and the town of Dún Laoghaire, in the county of Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown in the historic County Dublin, Ireland. It was founded as a Viking settlement and became an active port during the Middle Ages. According to chronicler John Clyn (c.1286–c.1349), it was one of the ports through which the plague entered Ireland in the mid-14th century. In modern times, Dalkey has become a seaside suburb that attracts some tourist visitors.
Sandymount is an affluent coastal suburb in the Dublin 4 district on the Southside of Dublin in Ireland.
Oliver Joseph St. John Gogarty was an Irish poet, author, otolaryngologist, athlete, politician, and well-known conversationalist. He served as the inspiration for Buck Mulligan in James Joyce's novel Ulysses.
Sandycove is a suburb of Dublin, Ireland. It is southeast of Dún Laoghaire and Glasthule, and northwest of Dalkey. It is a popular seaside resort and is well known for its bathing place, the Forty Foot, which in the past was reserved for men only but is now available for mixed bathing. The locale features in the opening of Ulysses by James Joyce.
Events in the year 1974 in Ireland.
Nude swimming is the practice of swimming without clothing, whether in natural bodies of water or in swimming pools. A colloquial term for nude swimming is "skinny dipping".
Paul Nicholas Gogarty is an Irish Independent politician who has served as a South Dublin County Councillor for Lucan since May 2014. He was previously a member of the Green Party, and served as a Green Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dublin Mid-West constituency from 2002 to 2011.
Malachi Roland St. John "Buck" Mulligan is a fictional character in James Joyce's 1922 novel Ulysses. He appears most prominently in episode 1 (Telemachus), and is the subject of the novel's famous first sentence: "Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed."
The James Joyce Tower and Museum is a Martello tower in Sandycove, Dublin, where James Joyce spent six nights in 1904. The opening scenes of his 1922 novel Ulysses take place here, and the tower is a place of pilgrimage for Joyce enthusiasts, especially on Bloomsday. Admission is free.
Gary O'Toole, M.D., is a retired Irish Olympic swimmer. He represented Ireland at the Seoul, and Barcelona Games.
The Liffey Swim, currently titled the Jones Engineering Dublin City Liffey Swim, is an annual race in Dublin's main river, the Liffey, and is one of Ireland's most famous traditional sporting events. The race is managed by a voluntary not-for-profit organisation, Leinster Open Sea. The 100th Liffey Swim over a 2.2 km course took place on Saturday 3 August 2019, starting at the Rory O’More Bridge beside the Guinness Brewery and finishing at North Wall Quay in front of the Customs House.
Liz Nugent is an Irish novelist, born in Dublin in 1967. She is the author of five crime fiction novels. The latest is Strange Sally Diamond, published in Ireland & UK in March 2023.
Aungier Street is a street on the south side of Dublin, Ireland. It runs north-south as a continuation of South Great George's Street.
Paul O'Flynn is an Irish television reporter for RTÉ News and Current Affairs.
The Turkish Baths was a Victorian Turkish bath on Lincoln Place, Dublin.
Fleet Street is a street on the southside of Dublin, Ireland. Located in the Dublin 2 area, Fleet Street runs eastwards, parallel to the River Liffey, through Temple Bar, across Westmoreland Street to D'Olier Street.