One of these fine days we’ll meet someone who knows the true history of the Christmas Day Swim in Greystones – we still don’t know what year it started – but, for now, we’re just happy that there are enough loons in the town to make it a grand way to start a special day.

After storm warnings all week, many were expecting the same wet, miserable weather that failed to stop Greystones’ hardy souls last year, it was pretty much a perfect day out there for a winter swim.

Having headed down at 11.30am, just to be sure, to be sure, it wasn’t until noon that the annual gathering  started to resemble Copacabana Beach during cocktail hour.

The mighty GAA and others took the plunge in aid of the South Beach Playground fundraiser whilst others threw whatever was jangling about in their trunks into the homeless charity buckets largely manned by the O’Halloran clan.

All in all, it couldn’t have been sweeter. Except for those ten minutes when Max went AWOL. He just couldn’t quite get over the fact that everyone was suddenly as excited as he was about those waves. Full gallery is right about here.

Full 2016 gallery here. You can check out Greystones’ Christmas Day Swims from 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015 right about here.