Swimposium
August 21st 2021
‘Sea swimming is a beautiful thing, in fact an art whose mistress should not be the few, but the many’
Mercedes Gleitze*
Saturday 21st August, 2021
A day-long journey travelling from the South to the North of Dublin, exploring the themes of the project.
For information on the speakers at the Swimposium see this PDF
Mercedes swimming trudgeon stroke, on her side. (Northern Whig & Belfast Post/British Newspaper Library/Gleitze Archives.)
The Swimposium took participants on a day-long journey across Dublin Bay, with swims, talks, sounds and music along the way. Mercedes Gleitze and her long distance, open water swimming feats provides a context for this event.
The Swimposium hoped to echo the swimmer’s embodied experience of duration, across time and distance, and investigate the connection with physical and psychological space of the ocean. The invited speakers straddle the creative, health academic and swimming worlds, opening up a discussion on swimming, its impact on the body and its role in communities.
Swimposium Programme and Speakers
Early morning sea swim and breakfast at Sandycove, Dun Laoghaire.
Presentations & Panel Discussion - Mercedes Gleitze, Swimming and Endurance:
Cliodhna Shaffrey, Philip Hoare, Anna Maria Mullally, Lisa Cummins, Rosie Foley
Chaired by Kari Furre
You can watch the morning talk session here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0CZoW0m5C0&t=2653s
Lunch and sea swim at Seapoint.
Presentations & Panel Discussion - Swimming as a practice of wellbeing:
Ronan Foley, Hannah Denton, Easkey Britton
Chaired by Kari Furre
You can watch the afternoon talk session here:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=WApC1SPPQpE&t=259s
Swim at The Baths, Clontarf - outdoor, sea water swimming pool
Evening meal and performance of “As easy stop the sea” written by Ruth Clinton and sung by Landless. At Bull Island at low tide on the beach by the Dollymount Sea Scouts Hall.
*Doloranda Pember (2019), In the Wake of Mercedes Gleitze, The History Press, p.235.
