It starts amongst sawdust and the crimson sails of a Galway Hooker, one of the striking wooden boats formerly used for fishing and transportation in Galway Bay. Her sails are furled for now, but soon they will fill with wind as she sets off to answer a new calling. Beside me on the deck is my older brother Oisín, opposite us are Pádraic and Peter. I know Pádraic through Oisín – both are involved in marine research at the University of Galway, and both are utterly in love with the ocean. As for Peter, he is somewhat of a celebrity here in Galway: a real character, and a node at the centre of a vast and varied network of people working to preserve Irish heritage. He chairs Bádóirí an Chladaigh (the Claddagh Boatmen), a society committed to restoring the Galway Hookers and passing on the skill of sailing them. Now, we sit together aboard the Naomh Crónán, the vessel which Peter has volunteered as support boat and ‘mother ship’ for an ambitious project called Swim Éire. Daragh Morgan, a young athlete from Dublin, is on a mission to inspire others to connect with and respect our waters – by swimming 1600 km around the coast of Ireland for charity.

A writer, a researcher, a sailor and a boat builder; we sit together and speak of how we can help both the young man, and the sea. My brother is thinking of science, Peter of heritage, Pádraic perhaps of the first job which lies ahead of him – sailing this boat 200 kilometres up the coast to meet Daragh and his team. The boat is being renovated in a rush, but it is hard for me to imagine her on the high seas after so many years stationary in Galway harbour.

Pádraic seems unphased though; he has likely spent about as much time on boats like this as on land, and knows we can trust her. He has the most tightly coiled curls I have ever seen, and something about his character too seems spring-like, ready for action at any moment. I am certain that if Daragh weren’t doing this swim, Pádraic would have found a way to sail a Galway Hooker around the country eventually.

Our first meeting aboard the Naomh Crónán is in June, but the renovations carry on for a few more weeks. Finally, Pádraic calls me at 10 pm on a Sunday in early July. It is impossible for him to tell me the exact plan – everything is constantly in motion and as changing as the tides upon which this swim depends. After a period of forced rest due to bad weather, the team are eager to cast off though. I leave early the next day, heading for Ballyglass, the small fishing port where the boat is moored. After 6 hours of travel, the last bus bound for the furthest reaches of Mayo pulls out of the station – without me on it. Having missed that essential connection, I am now stranded somewhere in the wild west of Ireland, an hour’s drive from the boat. “Disaster”, I write, but Pádraic replies immediately “Don’t worry. You’re part of the crew now.”

He tells me that “one of the Daras” will collect me, because at the moment, the crew consists of Dara, Daragh and Darragh. Pádraic’s middle name is, of course, Dara. Nicknames are assigned immediately, at least in my notebook. At the helm of the ship are Pádraic and Captain Dara, a commercial fisher who has been sailing “since he was knee-high to a grasshopper”. He and Pádraic speak Irish together, both in the round and rolling dialect of Connemara. Captain Dara passes on his knowledge with humour and patience, an immovable rock against which the more volatile members of the crew occasionally need to crash. When I ask what brought him here, he laughs – “Sure what else would you be at?”, and this quickly becomes the motto of the whole operation.

When he is not up to his elbows in the engine, his hands are usually busy splicing and reknotting lines. Darragh Rua looks on, learning the ropes or passing spanners while also keeping the crew well-fed with fresh fish and Michelin-class meals. We call him Rua – red in Irish – for his flaming hair and beard. His stories are epic, and will have to be told by himself– slightly bashfully, but with a wild glow in his eyes and full knowledge that he has been put on this earth to do something special. As for Daragh the swimmer, Pádraic eventually christens him ‘Ronnach’, the Irish word for mackerel.

Mackerel and the quest for meaning

Daragh Ronnach is sun-browned with a peeling nose, usually barefoot, his hair wild and becoming bleached from the water and sun. Around his wrist are rosary beads which he checks like a watch. The first thing that strikes me about him is the passion he pours into every project he undertakes, some of which he describes as a “calling”. Last year, at the age of 25, he bought a second-hand pram to hold his camping gear as he ran the length of Ireland from Mizen to Malin Head. Along the way, he sampled holy wells, analysing their mineral content and taking painstaking notes on everything from temperature to flavour.

Reflecting on this as we drive through the countryside of Mayo, he says that the connection she made along the way helped make that experience so meaningful, and facilitating these connections for others is at least part of what motivates him now. A life-long lover of the sea and passionate endurance athlete, Daragh seems driven by an unstoppable motor. He would likely be doing something like this even if it weren’t for charity, but he clearly takes his fundraising mission very seriously; as a former lifeguard, he has firsthand knowledge of the type of lifesaving services that the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) provide. He is also swimming for Simon Community, an Irish charity which combats homelessness; while the RNLI provide safety and security to those at sea, Simon Communities around the country provide safe harbours on land. The Naomh Crónán is the perfect figurehead for Daragh’s mission – a symbol of community, and of the support we can and must provide for one another.

Reunited with the ship, I find her somehow more alive. The empty vessel has become a home, a space for the rhythms of work and rest. Daragh shows me around, saying “It looks a bit barbaric at the start, but sure so does everything, so does this trip, and you need to start somewhere.” The deck does seem messy at first glance, a tangle of ropes and gear with a scattering of dust and oil and fresh fish scales – but I soon realise that it is an organised chaos which mirrors the larger operation. Everything is as shifting as the ocean swell, and everyone involved needs to think on their feet. This project is something that only becomes clear as it unfolds, a thing that is obviously impossible until it is done. Winds are constantly changing, and the swimming needs to line up with the rising tide each day. Plans are formulated late each evening over a cup of tea, and are liable to change again with the rising sun.

The only way to make a thing like this work is with adaptability – and trust. Solutions to the problems that inevitably arise must be cobbled together on the spot: a Lucozade bottle to amplify the light attached to Daragh as he swims through the darkness, coconut oil in his coffee each morning to stop the salt water from dissolving his tongue. But Ronnach also places trust in a higher power; on the way to one swim, we make a quick stop at a church so he can grab a laminated blessing for the Naomh Crónán and a new set of rosary beads for himself. Another set hangs on the petrol tank of the small fibreglass boat which accompanies him on his swims, the Davey Boy.

It is hard for me to imagine that this little blue boat will make it across the vast maw of Donegal Bay, whose deep waters stretch ahead of Daragh now. The next few days will likely be the most difficult and dangerous part of his swim.

The challenges within the challenge

A fine mist softens the morning as we motor out to the pindrop where Daragh finished his last swim. Ahead of him lie almost 80 kilometres of open ocean. In the water, there is a powerful swell rolling in, allowing Daragh to surf at times, then hiding him from sight for long tense seconds. His rhythm is to stay in the water for 4 to 6 hours, head down crawling for an hour at a time. On the hour, we offer him water, Lucozade, a fistful of ham sandwich or biscuits made soggy and salty by the little waves rebounding off the side of the boat. Slowly, the day brightens from grey to silver, and after 4 hours and 11 kilometres, Daragh emerges from the water, elated and exhausted.

A few times, I ask him what he thinks about when he is in the water, but it is hard for him to answer. Sometimes he doesn’t think, and sometimes he thinks about food. Sometimes he is practising Irish; he has started learning 3 words a day, rehearsing an introduction of himself and his mission. Daragh atá ormsa. Táim ag snámh timpeall na hÉireann. My name is Daragh, and I am swimming around Ireland. Captain Dara and Padraic make sure that he learns the Irish of Connemara rather than the standardised Irish taught in schools.

It is clear that Daragh feels deeply connected to this country, but like many of us, he has grown up somewhat estranged from its language and culture. It is the ocean that offers him a reconnection to place, and his love for it is clear. His eyes brighten when he tells me about the pod of bottle-nosed dolphins that accompanied him on one night swim, bright bellies floating by eerily in the darkness and their sheer number rocking the Davey Boy. When he tries to capture what it feels like for him to be in the water, fully immersed in something he loves so much, the swim from the Aran Islands to Lettermore comes to mind.

At the very beginning of this odyssey, rough weather made for poor swimming conditions. On that day though, he swam in a strange corridor of calm, the cold cradling him as he propelled his body forward. Below him, sea grass was swaying in a crystal-clear current, drifting particles caught in golden shafts of light. Each time he banked to draw a breath, the air was filled with the smell of gorse burning on the nearby shore. His energy and enthusiasm are infectious. No one who hears his mad laugh can resist laughing along. On land, he is boyish, throwing feinting jabs at Darragh Rua. In the water though, he is a different creature altogether: calm and exacting, polite and measured. Sometimes though, the strain shows – both the physical and mental load are heavy. It is hard to rest properly in such close quarters with others. It is hard to push his body day after day.

When he is not swimming, he naturally jumps in wherever he is needed, whether in the kitchen or on the deck. He is facing pressure not only from the winds and the tides, but from well-wishers and doubters alike. To swim in a straight line against such currents takes a force of will at least as strong as his body needs to be.

On top of all that, there is the problem of sponsorship; a mission like this takes funds. There is a crew to feed, diesel to be bought, repairs and maintenance to be done if the whole thing is to stay afloat. Recently, the simple addition of a buymeacoffee link to his social media posts has started to bring in some of the essential support the team needs. Every little donation makes a difference, as do the cups of tea and scones offered by local cafes or the likes and shares of the Swim Éire posts. These things may seem like drops in the ocean – but a whole ocean is made up of such drops.

Science and sensibility

The crew must navigate this challenge by equal parts knowledge and feeling. All on board know the sea intimately, and get input from locals whenever they are unsure. There is certainly a level of guesswork to it, but it is the guesswork of experts in their element, intuition honed through years of learning and practice. Captain Dara and Pádraic are particularly attuned to the inherent chaos of the sea, but also to the patterns which underly it; I never tire of watching them sail the Naomh Crónán, springing into a frenzy of action and then relapsing into languid alertness. Everyone aboard keeps one eye on the high-tech Navionics, the other on the horizon – and somehow, both eyes on the swimmer at all times. The two more seasoned sailors deal better than any of us with all the uncertainty. One morning, the conditions aren’t right and the swim must be delayed. Captain Dara says “Fan leis an cóir…”, and Pádraic completes it “agus tiocfaidh an cóir.” Wait for a fair wind, and a fair wind will come. Fishing communities are used to periods of downtime dictated by changing conditions, Captain Dara tells me. He paints a picture of resilient people who are no strangers to hardship – but admits that the challenges facing these communities today are unmistakably outside of the natural ebb and flow of coastal life. “Going back 30 years, everything had its season, everything was given a chance”, says Captain Dara, and Darragh Rua agrees: “Instead of being one with nature, giving and taking, we’re just mauling”.

The problems facing our waters are increasingly urgent, and require new methods and technology alongside a respect of local experience and knowledge. Waiting for a fair wind is no longer an option – we need to generate our own. In this vein, our vessel has a separate mission; as part of the Marine Institute funded CÓIR project, the crew have been collecting water samples along their route to find out which organisms are present in our waters with the use of DNA analyses. It is slow and pain-staking labour, but it will help to give us a better picture of the state of our oceans and allow us to tailor our solutions to the challenges we face. The data will be considered in combination with another data set currently being collected for the European BioProtect project by the team around Ross Edgeley, who is swimming around the coast of Iceland. Instead of being separated by the Atlantic, that immense body of water in which both Ross and Daragh swim, we are in fact united by it – by our love of it, and our work to protect it. Whatever the future of these waters will be, it is comforting to know that we are on this voyage together.

All in the same boat

A heatwave has rolled up from the Azores, bringing high temperatures and clear blue skies.Our world is technicolour: the bright blue and green of water and land, deep red of the full sail unfurling. The creatures we meet today seem playful. Sea birds wheel and skim, knifing through the air before piercing the water and emerging with fish-glint in beak. A seal surfaces every now and again, eying us intently before disappearing with an impatient huff.Then the porpoises arrive, drawn to the noise and speed of our little boat. Again and again, they leap alongside us, racing just beneath the water to cross our bow. This is a familiar game for them – their smooth bodies bear the white scars of propellers from too-close encounters with boats. Behind us, Daragh throws his wild laugh to the wind as the porpoise play around him. Starboard, the cliffs turn golden in the evening light, softened by the setting sun which slowly fills each deep groove with shadow.

Daragh has made it across Donegal Bay. More than 1000 km of coastline and water lie aheadof him, but for now, he can breathe a sigh of relief. He is curious about what is to come –what communities he will meet, who will come aboard next. By welcoming people like me on board, he has already succeeded in part of his mission: showcasing some of the lesser-known sides of Ireland and helping others to reconnect with this land.

Back in port, life on the Naomh Crónán continues as usual. Below deck, dinner is cooking, and a new boiler is being installed. The crew will have hot water now to wash dishes made greasy by thick knobs of butter, essential calories for Daragh as he returns to the sea day by day. At least 3 months of swimming lie ahead of him, and Donegal Bay will surely not be the last challenge he faces. I know that he will not face them alone though, because as we say inIrish: Ní neart go cur le chéile – Unity is strength.

The night before I leave, another crew member comes aboard. Rebecca will take over from Darragh Rua in the kitchen and is eager to connect with organic farms around the country to help spread the love for Irish produce and cuisine. Pádraic’s brother Cillín is on his way to step in as first mate. The tide of the crew is changing, but one thing is not – everyone here brings their own skills to the table, alongside a willingness to learn and grow with the demands of the mission.

I give up my berth for the new crew member and build myself a nest of oil skins and Aran jumpers outside on the deck. The mast towers above my head, pointing to the stars which for millennia have guided seafaring folk. Wood creaks, canvas flaps, ropes slap against wood and metal. A light breeze mixes the saline smell of the sea with the wool of my nest and the animal musk of my own tired body. I drift off almost immediately, and dream of bright white bellies flashing through clear water, hope embodied.

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Support the Swim Éire expedition HERE.