Long before wetsuits and organised wild-swimming groups, sea bathing in Portrush was a strictly segregated, surprisingly formal affair — and it gave several streets in the town their names.
Separate places for gentlemen and ladies
Portrush’s first bath house was built in 1834 by Lord Mark Kerr — who’d married into the Antrim family — giving Bath Street, Bath Road and Bath Terrace their names. Gentlemen swam at the Blue Pool, a diving and swimming venue with cliff dives up to around 7 metres, which hosted formal diving displays; women weren’t permitted to join those displays until 1916. Ladies had two designated spots of their own instead: a pool at “Murtagh’s Mouth,” between the Blue Pool and the Salmon Fishery, and a stretch of beach at Craigvara/Arcadia Strand. The South Pier of the harbour also had bathing boxes and a diving board by 1910.
A Ballymena Observer report from 26 August 1910 describes a full “Aquatic Display” at the Blue Pool, with divers competing from a 40-foot platform and a swimming gala that included, among other events, a “Graceful Swimming Contest for ladies.” The old bath house itself later became a garage, then a WWII cookhouse for American D-Day training troops, and eventually the Portrush Countryside Centre.
Eileen Chubb’s swim
The standout feat on record belongs to Eileen Chubb, daughter of the manager of the Giant’s Causeway Columnar Basalt Company. On 13 September 1915, the Derry Journal reported she’d swum the roughly seven miles from Causeway Head to Portrush in 3 hours 55 minutes — having already swum from Portrush to the Skerries and back in 85 minutes just days earlier. It’s a genuine open-water achievement, decades before recreational sea swimming became fashionable again.
Mixed bathing, and a modern revival
Interwar years saw bathing become mixed-sex, with better facilities — slides and ladders added to the old bathing spots. Interest declined through the mid-20th century as indoor pools and foreign package holidays drew swimmers elsewhere, until a wave of outdoor “wild swimming” brought sea bathing back into fashion in recent years — a genuine return to a tradition Portrush was practising, formally and enthusiastically, well over a century ago.