May 25 - The day Jack went through the motions

Dee Maguire of Limerick Masters Swimming Club is correct in claiming that the water in the Shannon through Limerick is the cleanest in the country as preparations advance for his club’s forthcoming and prestigious annual Thomond Swim. Sadly, it was not always so.

Prior to the installation of the elaborate waste water collection and treatment facility, many sewer outlets fell directly into the waterway, especially the Abbey River branch. These were mostly concealed from public gaze by being situated underneath bridges, but millions of tonnes of raw effluent poured directly into the channel weekly.

Expat Dubliner, Jack Bourke, was first elected to Limerick City Council in 1967 and became mayor of the city in the succeeding year. As part of the then Spring festival, precursor of what was to become Civic Week under Gus O’Driscoll’s mayoralty a few years later, a charity swim around King’s Island at high tide was organised, including swimming the entire length of the Abbey. Aged only 35, the sprightly and athletic mayor not only undertook to flag the swimmers on their way but volunteered to participate himself in the race. And so he did.

However, not very far along the course he was seen clambering up a ladder from the stagnant and fetid Abbey River in the grey waters of which the coursest evidence of domestic sewage was clearly to be seen. When approached by a Limerick Leader journalist as to why he had abandoned the swim, the quick-witted mayor replied that he had done so because he “had only been going through the motions”.

Jack Bourke, who died last year, went on to become mayor again, in 1986 and 1999.

MARTIN BYRNES

Maiden Street, Newcastle West