Learning to swim - with alligators

As a way of learning to swim, diving head-first into water has its merits. But when there are two hungry alligators awaiting your arrival, it could well have a downside.

Yet later today, 58-year-old Josephine Fitzgerald from Callan, Co Kilkenny, will learn the hard way whether the swimming lessons she has taken have worked or not.

The mother of one will dive into an alligator pool in Co Kilkenny in a bid to raise funds for Breast Cancer Ireland. Josephine is undertaking the feat as a tribute to her daughter Cathy, 35, who is battling cancer a second time.