‘You can’t tell who’s had cancer and who hasn’t’

For people strolling Lapp’s Quay and Albert Quay in Cork the long boats knifing through the water, crews paddling furiously, are a familiar sight. Don’t feel the opening sequence of Hawaii Five-O is an unfair comparison, because it’s one made by the Cork Dragons themselves.

They’re the Leeside outpost of dragon boat racing: a sport with a difference. Orla Riordan of the Cork Dragons explains: “This was started by the HSE when they found that women and men who have had breast cancer benefit hugely from the motion of the paddling, that was the beginning of it.