Women set strip and dip record on secluded Wicklow beach

The substantial funds raised from the successful world record-breaking skinny dip over the weekend will be used to purchase a furnished, family-friendly house in Dublin for cash-strapped parents of cancer-stricken children visiting the capital for extended hospital stays.

More than 2,500 women entered the record books on Saturday, raising hundreds of thousands of euro in the process for a children’s cancer charity, when they stripped off at a secluded Wicklow beach to take part in the largest-ever skinny dip.

All about to strip aff 🍑💞@gwr #stripanddip #Wicklow pic.twitter.com/eGlXuPvzfs

— Erinn Louise Kerr (@ErinnKerr_) June 9, 2018

A Guinness adjudicator, who flew in to monitor the event, confirmed that 2,505 naked women spent at least five minutes in the sea to smash the record, which had been set in 2015 in Perth, Australia, when 786 people took part in a nude dip.

The Strip and Dip event has been an annual charity fixture since it was started by Dublin cancer survivor Deirdre Featherstone in 2013, just weeks after her own mastectomy.

Some of the skinny-dipping participants soak in the sun as they tell cancer what they really think on Magheramore beach. Picture: Clodagh Kilcoyne.

This year’s event, in terms of scale, number of participants, and the amount donated, caught the public’s imagination like never before.

€250,000 has already been raised for children’s cancer charity Aoibheann’s Pink Tie, with over €20,000 of that donated in just one hour on Saturday morning.

A woman with a special message written on her back during the world record. Picture: Clodagh Kilcoyne.

Jubilant organisers have now raised their fundraising target to €400,000, which would enable the charity to realise its dream of being able to provide permanent accommodation for families of children with cancer visiting the capital.

A participant shows her breast cancer scar during the Strip and Dip event on Magheramore beach. Picture: Clodagh Kilcoyne.

Jimmy Norman, founder of Aoibheann’s Pink Tie, said: “This is probably the greatest day in the history of our charity. We’ve never raised so much money for a single event, and it has really exceeded all our expectations.”