Meet the Irish women who swam to Scotland: 'We all wanted it... It wasn’t just about doing it, but doing it in a good time'

“My kids were getting older and I wanted to live my own life. I wanted to reinvent myself.”

And so the 55-year-old mother-of-three did just that.

On Saturday, June 15, Siobhán and four other brave women — Afric Creedon, Karen Molloy, Jackie O’Connor and Orla Colreavy — swam a relay of the North Channel of the Irish Sea, from Donaghadee near Bangor in Northern Ireland to Scotland.

‘There was no sun and it wasn’t pleasant. The water was 11.8C. It was Baltic’

Starting at 5.30am, they did the 42.2km swim in 12 hours, 19 minutes and 46 seconds. They were the 40th relay ever to do it. That’s special.

“The North Channel is known as the beast. It’s one of the toughest swims,” says Siobhán.

“The water is cold, 9C to 12C, and there are strong currents. There are jellyfish, but we decided to do it in June before the lion’s mane jellyfish get there. They prefer warmer water.

“The swim is unpredictable. Half way over the tide is going to turn, so you just get in and swim like the clappers.”

And they did — in ordinary swimsuits, one swimming cap each, goggles and no watch, in accordance with Irish Long Distance Swimming Association rules.

They took it in turns to swim for an hour, observing strict rules about changeovers, not touching the boat while they swam.

As well as the boat crew from the swim organisers at Infinity Channel Swimming, they brought an observer from the Irish Long Distance Swimming Association.

When not in the water, each swimmer took turns to time a team-mate and write it on a board in 10-minute intervals. They would dangle this within the swimmer’s eye-line.

When one of them spotted that a swimmer was getting tired, she would draw a love heart beside the number. The relay was all about the team and supporting each other.

Afric was first of the five into the water.

“There was no sun and it wasn’t pleasant,” she says. “The temperature was 11.8C. It was Baltic.

"I was too cold to kick my legs, but I told the others that it wasn’t that bad. I didn’t want to put them off.

"I just thought of silly songs in my head — you tell yourself to keep on going. It really is mind over matter.”

In between swims, they helped each other get out of their wet togs fast, put on layers of warm clothes and sat in their dryrobes drinking tea and eating ham sandwiches and porridge.

The North Channel is a massive challenge for anyone, but these five women faced it down. They range in age from 42 to 55, and four of them are mothers.

When it comes to their swimming prowess, most of them are comeback kids.

All swam in clubs as children, but most dropped out from the Leaving Cert onwards, if not earlier. In 1991, Siobhán won the first-ever Ladies’ Liffey Swim. But over the years they had all drifted away from their swimming lives. Things got busy and life got in the way.

After college, marriage, kids and achieving some career goals, they finally got back in the water and started to swim seriously.

‘I do all my best thinking in the water. The sea is an escape’

For some of them, it started with wanting to get fit again, to feel strong and shed the baby weight.

Along the way they got to know each other through doing Leinster Open Sea swims, and they all enjoyed the camaraderie at those events.

Some are wives and mothers of young children. Karen is a solicitor, Orla works in mental health services, Siobhán is a swimming teacher, Afric is a primary teacher and Jackie has just finished college for the second time. She re-trained as a primary teacher and is now looking for a teaching post.

On Saturday, in between counting her strokes in the North Channel, she was rehearsing answers for her upcoming job interviews.

“I do all my best thinking in the water,” she says.

When she is in a bad mood, her husband tells her to go for a swim.

“There’s so much going on,” says the mother of three young children. “The water is like an escape. It’s just you and your thoughts. Then when I get out of the water, I’m like a new person.”

Afric has a similar feeling.

“When I’m in the water, nobody needs me, no one is calling me,” she says.

“I teach senior infants, so there’s a lot of ‘Miss Creedon’. But when I’m in the sea, I can switch off.”

Somewhere in these women’s busy lives, they made time to train. They all did it at different times, fitting it in around work, family commitments and their other activities.

Some swam at dawn, some hung around a little after work to go training and others went late at night after they had put the kids to bed.

They trained hard in the pool and swam in the sea at weekends all year, acclimatising themselves for the epic swim.

‘When the sun shone, and I saw the rays in the dark green water, I thought how lucky I was’

Karen has Raynaud’s phenomenon which makes her fingers and toes numb with the cold.

“But you get used to the cold. It’s amazing how your body can acclimatise.

"You can push your own boundaries, but with Raynaud’s I have to be careful not to overdo it. I’m conscious not to let it get as far as the core,” she says — and then tells me that last year she did the European Ice Swimming championships in Romania. Talk about toughness.

Saturday was actually the first time all five women swam together — but such was the bond and trust between them, they were all ready.

“We’re all relaxed and easy-going,” says Karen, who lives in Mayo. “But we all wanted it. This was important to us.”

“It wasn’t just about doing it, but doing it in a good time,” says Orla.

This was her first time doing a channel relay. The other four swam the English Channel in 2023 with another swimmer, Yvonne McCarthy. They did the 32km from England to France in 11 hours, 39 minutes — an Irish record for the five fastest women.

As well as being on that team, Karen did the North Channel last year, too.

Being the new girl, Orla didn’t want to let the others down.

“This was more than just participating. It was about training hard, getting out of our comfort zone and pushing ourselves,” says Orla.

“Doing it as a team is so enjoyable,” says Karen.

The most extraordinary thing about this magnificent feat is how unassuming they have been about the whole thing.

Three of them are in my swimming club, NAC Masters, and after training sessions they might be happily chatting away in the changing room about swim suits and other mundane matters. Not a mention of gearing up for the North Channel and all the training they had done.

I didn’t tell anyone in work – talking about it would wreck my head

Even now that it’s done, many of them have yet to share their news.

“I didn’t tell anyone in work,” says Orla. “It’s such a long build-up and talking about it would wreck my head.

"Also, there was the danger that it mightn’t happen at all, as it depends on tides and the wind. The waiting was the worst part. But I’ll tell people now.”

In fact, she rhapsodises about it now.

“At parts of the swim, it was very cold and there was a lot of chop and you’d feel the swell. You’re swimming in a depth of 300 metres,” she says.

“But when the sun shone, and you could see the rays on the dark green water, I thought how lucky I was to be doing this. What a privilege.

“On the boat on the way back from Scotland, everyone was very quiet — but inside we were smiling. We were relieved we got through it, and felt a massive sense of accomplishment.”

They are all so appreciative of their husbands and families who supported them along the way.

Some of them decided to fundraise for charity through the swim (you can contribute on North Channel Relay Swim 2024 iDonate).

Karen raised money for the Parkinson’s Ireland charity. Her late father — who instilled in her the love of swimming — got Parkinson’s disease in his 50s. She knows how much he would love to be swimming, so she thought of him when she agreed to do the swim.

She says it was something she knew she had to do.

“When these opportunities present themselves, you’ve got to grab them with both hands.”

The swim relay raised funds for three charities. Search ‘North Channel Swim’ on the website idonate.ie to contribute