Endurance Swim
October 1st - 2nd 2021
‘I don’t swim up and down the pool as is commonly imagined, but along the length and width, keeping near the side. I swim the trudgeon stroke, the breast stroke, and the over-arm side stroke, alternating each to break the monotony and keep the muscles in good working order.’
Mercedes Gleitze*
Friday 1st - Saturday 2nd October, 2021
30 hour Endurance Swim and Performance at Midleton College swimming pool, Co Cork.
Performance Programme available to download here
Image taken during an international swimming/floating competition in Sydney, Australia, in 1931. Unknown photographer/Gleitze archives.
In 1930 Mercedes Gleitze performed an ‘Endurance Swim’ in Cork at the Eglinton Baths (since closed) where she swam continuously for 30 hours without stopping or touching the sides, breaking the current endurance swim record at the time. There were large crowds of spectators, thousands of people visited the Eglinton Baths over that time. There was continuous music and entertainment on the pool deck, people would read to Mercedes as she swam and Mercedes would sign aughtographs from the water.
On October 1st and 2nd, at Midleton College swimming pool, Swimming a Long Way Together reimagined Mercedes’ swim as a collective and community effort. Groups of swimmers were timetabled to swim continually in the pool throughout the 30 hours, while at the same time a rolling programme of musicians, storytellers, DJ’s, spoken word, dancers and bands performed on the pool side for the entire duration.
The performance program was selected by an open call and performers from across Cork and beyond came an performed on the pool deck through out the 30 hour duration. Students from Midleton College created the lanterns that decorated the pool at night and large, gold paper-maché gramophone that floated in the middle the pool for the entire 30 hours.
*Doloranda Pember (2019), In the Wake of Mercedes Gleitze, The History Press, p.157.
