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Club is still in the swim 50 years after taking the plunge
THE celebrations to mark the first half-century of the Askeaton Swimming Club continued this week when the club held a gala anniversary dinner dance that attracted up to 250 people. "We had a great night," club chairman Jimmy O'Donoghue said.
The night itself, held in Rathkeale House Hotel, was also a very lively one, as many former members travelled to take part in the celebrations and old friendships were renewed and old stories retold.
A good share of the 15 original founders of the club were also present, and their action in calling a meeting on an August Sunday in 1959 was honoured when they were each presented with a piece of Thomond Crystal, engraved with their names.
"What is remarkable about Askeaton Swimming Club is that it was never just about one or two people. It was, and remains, everybody's club," Mr O'Donoghue told the Limerick Leader.
The proof of that can be seen, he pointed out, in the fact that the club had 80 children and young people in training at the moment – with a waiting list of 35 others. This, he argued, was possibly the biggest achievement of all.
But, he continued, the heart and soul of the soul was about ordinary people achieving extraordinary things.
And he pointed to their success, over 50 years, in developing first, an outdoor pool, then upgrading it and finally, in partnership with Limerick County Council, achieving their ultimate dream with the opening last year of Askeaton Pool and Leisure Complex.
Earlier this year, announcing the programme of celebrations to mark the 50th anniversary, founding member Michael Mulcaire explained that in the years prior to the setting up of the club, there had always been great interest in swimming and in watersports on the Deel.
During those summers in the 1950s, he said, you could have up to 200 people on the green on the banks of the Deel or further upriver at the Leap. The founding meeting of the club, he told the Limerick Leader, was called by two young lads, barely out of school – Paudie Ranahan and Michael O'Riordan – and the meeting took place on the steps of the Parish Hall because the 15 didn't have the price of renting the hall.
But within a week, a gala had been organised and a rich history began to unfold. That history has now been written down as part of the 50th anniversary celebrations, and the first copy was presented last Saturday night to Patricia Cleary, president of Swim Ireland, who attended the gala dinner dance and congratulated the club on its significant birthday.
An official launch of the book is planned for next month and the celebrations will continue in August when the club will recreate the founding meeting and will unveil a plaque at the community centre. The club also plans to host a Deel Gala Swim as well as organising a special event for its young members.
On Saturday night however, it fell to the club's founding chairman, Basil Fitzgibbon, to cut the birthday cake – complete with the club's crest. And along with the cheers that rang out for all that had been achieved, there rose also a conviction that the future, too, was in safe hands.
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Wednesday 08 February 2012
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