'My brother Martin was my inspiration during my Catalina Channel sub-16-hour swim'

Maura Twomey became the oldest person to successfully cross California’s Catalina Channel in a sub-16-hour swim last summer, earning the Triple Crown of Open Water Swimming while raising funds for the Irish Kidney Association. She tells Helen O’Callaghan why she did it and what kept her going during the demanding swim

Maura Twomey: "I got into swimming by accident and good fortune. Our father worked for Guinness in Dublin. They had a beautiful pool and we all got free cards to swim there. We didn’t have swimming lessons; we just kind of learned to swim."

On the Catalina Channel crossing, you swim at night; you start at 11pm and swim into the dawn.

When I did it in August, the challenge began in 12-knot winds, chop and swells that never completely settled. Some swimmers do it in nine, 10 hours; I was done in 15 hours, 45 minutes. In these open-water swimming groups, I’m on the slow end, slow but steady.

I go into a kind of zone; I settle myself down. What I mean by that — there’s a certain excitement when you jump into the water and a bit of fear. Will I make it? Am I ready? To keep my mind in a good place, I usually think, ‘How lucky am I?’

I feel gratitude for my family. I think of my parents, how happy they’d be if I’m doing something I love. I give gratitude for my siblings. I have a dozen and they have children and so do they. I’ve a lot of people to go through. I’m not even a third of the way down my family when someone offers me a drink.

I think of my coaches, what they’ve said — I know all my faults, I try to correct them. I think of poetry as I go. A thing I loved about the Irish education, that I’ve poetry in my head. Seeing the stars on the Catalina Channel crossing, I had the lines: ‘My soul, there is a country far beyond the stars…’ And EE Cummings’ poem: ‘Maggie and Milly and Molly and May went down to the beach one day.’ There’s a line towards the end that really hits me; it feels like me: ‘For whatever we lose (like a you or a me), it’s always ourselves we find in the sea.’

Maura Twomey became the oldest person to successfully cross California’s Catalina Channel in a sub-16-hour swim last August.

I got into swimming by accident and good fortune. Our father worked for Guinness in Dublin. They had a beautiful pool and we all got free cards to swim there. We didn’t have swimming lessons; we just kind of learned to swim.

Guinness had a swimming club too — they had a coach over from England, an Olympic swimmer. I walked up to him one day and said: “I want to be in your club.” So I got a bit of swimming training. I was nine or 10. Whatever inspired me to step out and say: “Can I join your club?” It was one of the first moves where I was just myself, not the ‘fourth girl’ or the ‘seventh child’ in the house.

Swimming gave me a sense of ‘I can be me; I don’t have to be the same as my older siblings’.

Open water swimming lets me relax, breathe. Instead of life’s busy checklist, thoughts come in random order. People show up in my consciousness — somebody I haven’t thought of in a while — and I’ll think I must send some love to them.

Maura Twomey: "My brother Martin was my inspiration during the Catalina Channel swim. Watching from across the Atlantic what he went through on kidney dialysis, seeing his health deteriorate, and then seeing the difference the transplant made — incredible."

In the water, I’m not insignificant because I’m here. But I’m not so important because I’m on this wave now, being pushed around. People use words like ‘conquered the Channel’. I never do. I say, ‘Mother Nature let me across today.’

The training for the Catalina Channel left a big impression. At the cold water camp in California, I was the slowest. You kind of know when people are looking at you, like, ‘What are you doing here?’ That they’re thinking, ‘Well, she’s so much slower, how’s she going to get across?’

Because I was at a certain point in my training where I wasn’t ready yet. Doubts can come along the way. But then you go do the thing you were getting ready for — and it goes just beautifully. I’ve learned that over and over, which doesn’t mean the doubts don’t come.

My brother Martin was my inspiration during the Catalina Channel swim. Watching from across the Atlantic what he went through on kidney dialysis, seeing his health deteriorate, and then seeing the difference the transplant made — incredible.

And when the wind kept pushing me off course, with every stroke harder than the last, and I felt I had nothing left, I thought of Martin, everything he’d endured. That kept me going. That swim has added all kinds of joy, connected me to nieces and nephews in different ways, telling me: “You’re an inspiration.”

Maura Twomey: "The training for the Catalina Channel left a big impression. At the cold water camp in California, I was the slowest. Doubts can come along the way. But then you go do the thing you were getting ready for — and it goes just beautifully."

There’s a little bit of ‘keep on keeping on’ in different life situations. None of this happened in a day. Yes, there was a day but every day you do something.

A neighbour in Boston said: “I saw you leaving the house in the mornings, in the dark. I know this didn’t just happen.”

As a 70-year-old woman, it’s nice to hear a young man giving you some admiration but also acknowledging it didn’t happen overnight. You can be put into categories, then you jump out, and people are like, ‘Wow!’

If I hadn’t finished the triple crown, it would have been a regret around: ‘Have I executed on my own courage?’

• Boston-based open water swimmer Maura Twomey, 70, successfully crossed California’s Catalina Channel this summer in 15 hours, 45 minutes. The former primary school teacher became the oldest person to complete the crossing, while also achieving the triple crown of open water swimming. Maura didn’t just swim for a record. Inspired by her brother Martin’s journey with dialysis and a kidney transplant, she wanted to raise funds for the Irish Kidney Association.
• For information on organ donation and how to obtain an organ donor card (including digital), visit ika.ie.