Feature: Dublin's historic swimming spot undergoing transition amid tradition

For more than 250 years, swimmers have been coming to the inlet on the southern tip of Dublin Bay in Ireland called the Forty Foot to swim in the sea.

Beyond a short but cautious climb over uneven sometimes ice-glazed rocks, the sea at the Forty Foot is rough and choppy on a February morning. About a dozen bathers have gathered along a sunny wall on what they call "the Sandycove Side."

At 10 a.m., most of the swimmers on Friday are over 50 years old -- each of them in various stages of undress. Some have just finished their swim and others have just arrived.

"I like to come here at high-tide, so we don't have to walk too far to the water," said Cynthia O'Mahoney, 41, who started swimming at the Forty Foot about two years ago.

"It's an addiction," said Stephen Smith, from nearby Dun Laoghaire town. He has been swimming here almost every day for over 13 years. "It's a healthy addiction to the feeling afterwards. I don't feel right on the days I don't swim."

Smith, who is in his mid-fifties, said he began swimming at the Forty Foot on a dare. "I only learned to swim when I turned forty, as a challenge to myself," he said. "It was May when I started swimming here, and the first winter was the hardest." Smith said the sense of friendly camaraderie among the swimmers here was a strong motivator too.

Perhaps the most famous swimmers at the Forty Foot may have been the Irish author James Joyce, who lived in the Martello tower that is just a few meters up on the hill, and which overlooks this picturesque promontory.

In James Joyce's literary classic Ulysses, published this month 93 years ago, protagonist Leopold Bloom began his day at this spot, where his friend Buck Mulligan "capered before them down towards the 40-foot hole, fluttering his wing-like hands."

For most of its history as a swimming destination, bathers at the Forty Foot were male "naturalists" who swam in the buff, and since the 1880s, the Forty Foot has been maintained by the all male Sandycove Bathers' Association.

"They installed the railings and built the two huts," said O'Mahoney. "One is for changing and the other is for making tea."

Though women have been coming to the Forty Foot to swim since the late 1960s as they pushed for more equality in Ireland, the Bathers' Association only began admitting women as members in March of 2014.

"Before that, women were allowed to swim here, but not to use the huts," O'Mahoney said.

A sign with "Togs must be worn" in bold lettering has been erected to warn swimmers against swimming in the nude, but this is still common practice. O'Mahony pointed out an area in the shade of an overhanging rock, where she said elderly gentlemen still strip down for their dip in the sea. "They will say, excuse me ladies, but I've forgotten my togs and am going to swim in the nip," she said.

Swimming in the sea has its usual dangers. In addition to turbulent waters, swimmers have reportedly been stung by jellyfish or bitten by seals in the waters.

It may seem like common sense to exercise caution when swimming in the open sea, but that did not deter visitors who were injured at this historic swimming spot from taking legal action against the 130-year-old bathing organization.

A string of lawsuits and liabilities made the association impossible to insure, and the group voted to disband this past December.

Though some worry that without the stewardship of the Sandycove Bathers' Association, the swimming hole might fall prey to graffiti and litter, like a number of other popular public swimming spots on the Dublin Bay, others like Sophie Watson said they will not be missed.

"They did pour bleach on the steps when they were covered with moss," Watson said. "But to me they were a bunch of codgers who did not want to include women."

For now, septuagenarian Noel Vesey said he will continue to return to the Forty Foot faithfully. "I live just up the road, and have been swimming here since I was a child," he said. "In those days we had nothing else to entertain us. I lived away for a while, but as soon as I moved back, I was back here swimming." Enditem