100 days of swimming

At the end of 2023, Kathy Donaghy started to feel a familiar undercurrent pulling her mood down — so on New Year’s Day she made a promise to swim for 100 days straight and documented what happened

The snow lay on the pier, freshly fallen; the kind that makes a satisfying ‘thwack’ when you step on it. I looked out to the horizon and then at the water, pulling my coat tighter for a few moments of extra warmth. I knew that soon the cold would envelop me, leaving no room for thoughts of anything else. I was here to swim. The whiteness underfoot made everything appear even more frigid. I picked my steps across the pier as pockets of ice lined the path to the water mark. The tide was high. On the horizon, clouds full of snow looked ready to drop another load. No birds sang. The cold left no room for voices of gladness it seemed.

“That’d wake you up in the morning,” my husband shouted, copying a line from the movie Braveheart as he ducked under the blue. I followed him gingerly, wondering not for the first time had we nowhere else to be.

It was New Year’s Day, just after our village’s annual charity swim, when I had the notion to swim for 100 days. The swims would take me through the coldest months of the year in the water when the temperature would dip to as low as 8C.

This winter marked 13 years since I moved back to my homeplace on the Inishowen Peninsula in north Co Donegal, a place where the sea is a constant on every horizon. Bound by Lough Foyle, Lough Swilly and the wild Atlantic Ocean, Inishowen is a place where you will always find somewhere to swim, no matter what road you take. I made a decision when I moved back that the sea would be a big part of my life and I made a pact to swim as many days as I could. I have swum all year long every year since then.

But on New Year’s Day, as we sipped hot whiskeys on

the pier at Redcastle with our friends and neighbours, I made another pact: to swim for 100 days. It seemed like a good number and I knew once those days had passed, the winter would have loosened its vice-grip hold on the land and the sea, that the spring would have arrived. I also hoped the dark of winter might have loosened its grip on my heart too.

Over Christmas, I’d felt a familiar undercurrent pulling my mood down. There was no one specific event I could put this dip in mood down to. Maybe it was a growing feeling that the world was more broken than ever.

Many years ago, when I was a student, I had suffered from depression. I didn’t see it coming but the experience left me mindful of taking care of my mental health. For me, swimming in the sea is like a reboot. No matter what the weather (unless it’s too stormy and dangerous to get in), I know I’ll feel better once I’ve immersed. I hoped that a daily swim would get me out of my busy head and be the tonic I felt I needed. And a cold comfort it would indeed become.

As I stood by myself at the pier at Redcastle on January 2, 100 days seemed like an impossibly long time. One day at a time, one swim at a time, I told myself. I would swim and then document what I’d seen, what it felt like, what was going on in this little part of the universe as I swam. I would take note of what was going on around me, look for subtle changes in the voices of the birds, in the trees that lined the path to the water, in the quality of the water itself.

On many days, for the sake of convenience, I would go to the pier at Redcastle, my home village. There’s a lane that runs down to Lough Foyle just past our local post office. When I’d get my two boys to school, my dog and I would get in the car and make the minute-long drive to the pier. On other days, I’d go to Culdaff Bay, where you see the big blue of the ocean from the hills from miles away or I’d go to Shroove, an inlet of the ocean outside the fishing village of Greencastle. Sometimes I’d go with my husband, my sister or a friend but, for the most part, this pursuit would be mine alone.

At the pier at Redcastle, there’s a rocky outcrop locals call Maiden Rock that, for me, provides a very real connection to those who came before us. It was here, at this very spot, that locals would gather along the shores of the Foyle to light the fire for loved ones departing on ships. Once out in the big wide Atlantic, a liner awaited to carry them across the ocean to new lives. That rock, a totem to the history of the people of this place, rises up and feels sacred to me.

As I would get ready to swim, I’d imagine my own ancestors coming here to swim as children. If I closed my eyes, I could almost hear the dip of oars as a Foyle Punt rowed past. This beautiful boat has all but disappeared from the Foyle now but my father and his uncle once fished salmon in these waters in a punt, the 16ft boat made specially to navigate the fast-flowing waters of the Foyle. It’s a place of ghosts and deep-running memories but also of guardians, and I always have the feeling that I am of this water, that this place shaped my whole life.

My daily dips seemed to bring a clarity to my day. I found myself noticing more, looking for chinks of light even on the greyest day, seeking out signs from the universe that life was unfolding just as it should. I found that, even on the dullest day, when the rain lashed the shore and me, there was always something beautiful; a big, beautiful cormorant dipping its eel-like head under the water, or a seal bobbing up to watch this strange creature enter her habitat.

By mid-January, I wrote that I felt something different bubbling up inside me. Was it optimism for the year ahead or something more solid like hope? I felt more positive, a little bit more alive to the possibility of the world. The pops of colour and beauty from my daily swim jolted me from the dead-eyed focus on the neverending list of things to do. I was smiling more.

Not every day was beautiful. Far from it. Many were grey but sometimes the sun came out and it did my heart so much good. I felt grateful for the gift of this little place. I felt grateful for the company of my husband when he was with me. I appreciated the hot coffee afterwards, the sweet kick of a spoonful of sugar. The simple things became grand things.

On February 1, Imbolc, after making St Brigid’s crosses with my mother, I swam at lunchtime. The cormorants stood wings outstretched on the rocks nearby. I read that, unlike other seabirds, the cormorant has to dry his wings after diving for fish. Their feathers are not waterproof but this also makes them able to dive more efficiently. Their vulnerability is their superpower. I think humans are like that too and, for some reason, swimming in cold water strips away all the noise of life right back to the basics. I feel vulnerable in the water too but, like the cormorant, I have my own strengths.

On one evening at Culdaff in February, I had the whole beach to myself. The sky was orange and dark clouds hung over the wide expanse of the Atlantic. I offered the sea my thanks, my heart lifted as I got in and braced myself against the cold. My legs kicked in joy. I realised that it had been over a month of swimming.

By March, the crows had started to build on the lane on the way to Maiden Rock. If I swam in the evening, the noise they made from their rookery was deafening. Spring had arrived and I was still swimming. A feeling akin to joy flooded me as I listened to the noisy conversation of the crows from the cold water below their nesting trees.

On some days, I would go home and post my photos to social media. Invariably, someone would write that I was either a bit mad or brave. I’m neither. The truth is, I’m just a woman struggling to make sense of the chaos in this world. I do it because I am free, because I can, because I live near the ocean and to honour that promise I made it years ago and because it’s my way to shed my earthly skin of worries and leave them all on the shore for a time.

The one thing that helps me more than any other to steady this mothership is to get into cold water and feel all the feelings, to notice the beauty, to feel the momentary pain and then get out.

I know that the pain caused by the cold is temporary, that there are places in the world where there is so much agony that a sea of tears has been cried. I know that there are places where a woman would lose her life for disrobing and walking into water with a snatch of elastane across her body. I realise how lucky I am.

A few years ago, through my work, I met a truly brave man who was attempting to solo fin swim around the country. I interviewed Henry O’Donnell in a boat off the coast of Greencastle. We talked about everything, including the deaths of people we loved.

Some weeks later, my home phone rang one Saturday morning at an ungodly hour. I rushed to answer. O’Donnell was on a rock somewhere off the coast of Wexford about to swim. He told me that, as he swam on this day, he’d dedicate his swim to a person beloved by my family who we lost; he told me he would swim in their honour.

Over a year later, I learned of O’Donnell’s death. I try to honour his life by holding someone in my thoughts as I swim. I imagine an arm around them, the sun over their head, a gentle breeze bringing a smile to their face as I pull one arm through the water and then the other.

It’s spring now and my 100 days are up. But here I am still swimming, still noticing the small gifts that were always there. The waters of Inishowen have imbued themselves more deeply into my soul. On the days when I was away from home, I found a swim spot elsewhere. On a trip to visit my youngest sister in Kilkenny, the Nuenna River was a beautiful change of water source. On a trip to Italy, I found a mountain river that became my daily dip spot. If I had to miss a day for any reason, I pledged to swim the very next I could.

Swimming the winter out, welcoming the spring, following the line of the sun or the moon on evening dips, has brought me a sense of peace. It has steadied my heart. For a few moments of each day, I gave myself over completely to swimming. I let my breath settle. The ups and downs of this crazy world were forgotten for those few minutes of immersion. It is a freedom and a privilege. The waters of Inishowen have held me, tossed me, chilled me and reminded me of the great gift of being alive in this world.

‘By mid-January, I wrote that I felt something different bubbling up inside me. Was it optimism for the year ahead or something more solid like hope?’