The sea can drown out our unease and anxiety

This week’s column in The Kerryman newspaper

Michael Commane

You may have forgotten, but last Monday week was a horrible day, at least in Castlegregory, where it rained all day, although swimming in the rain can be a fabulous experience. 

But the following day, Tuesday was a different story, blue skies and sun; full tide was 10.00, the perfect time to swim. You could loll about in the water as you would in a bath but the expanse and wonder of the sea at Castlegregory is an infinity away from a tiny bathtub. I was able to swim, jump, even roar in the waters.

Well done to Kerry County Council, who  have placed a number of timber benches and picnic tables in the parking area. 

It was my first time to avail of the new seats, where I sat down and looked across at Kerry Head. I even got a hint of Loop Head, away in the distance.

The council have also done remedial work at the carpark, placing large boulders in an attempt to protect the area from further erosion, another of the many symptoms of our changing climate.

It will be great if it works. No doubt the engineers and designers know what they are doing, but it is all of us, in conjunction with our political leaders, who have to make a better effort in protecting our planet.

The simple pleasure of sitting down on a timber bench looking out to sea and sky, was a moment of extraordinary wonder and pleasure. 

I know it’s not always swimming weather in Ireland but however wintery or miserable it may be on a summer’s day, the water for the majority of people is easily warm enough for a swim. My father kept insisting that September was the best month for swimming in the sea in Ireland as it had the heat of the summer in it.

The sea has a special charm for me and evokes great memories. I recall swimming with my father at the strand in Castlegregory when he was 92. He walked down to the water in his flip flops, I holding one hand, he had his stick in his other hand; as soon as he was afloat I threw the flip-flops on to the sand along with his stick, and off we went a-swimming. How can I forget such a moment. 

That Tuesday I was swimming in Castlegregory, looking out to sea, I kept thinking how it must have looked just like that when my grandfather was swimming there in the 19^th century. And then my father learned to swim in that same spot before the 1916 Rising.

Maybe even my great grandfather or great grandmother were swimming there before my grandfather.

With all our advancement, our technological knowhow, and now the approach of ever more sophisticated AI, isn’t it ironic that the simple pleasure and fun of swimming is hard to beat.

Austrian poet and novelist Rainer Maria Rilke (1875 - 1926) gets it when he says: ‘When anxious, uneasy and bad thoughts come, I go to the sea, and the sea drowns them out with its great wide sounds, cleanses me with its noise, and imposes a rhythm upon everything in me that is bewildered and confused.’

Inspiring words to keep us swimming all year round.