VIDEO: Bluebell Cottage offers secluded niche in Sandycove

The days may well pass swimmingly at Sandycove’s Bluebell Cottage with its island views, says Tommy Barker.

TODAY, some 400 swimmers enter the River Lee’s tidal waters in Cork city centre, to swim the c 2km route under nine bridges from the North Mall to the Lee’s south channel, by City Hall.

It’s likely many of them have been training hard, for much the year or all year around in the sea at Sandycove — one of the hardy homes of Ireland’s year-round sea swimmers, where they do laps of Sandycove Island, come hail, rain or jellyfish.