Diggers, mums, swimmers... characters of Cork’s beaches

“POOR old Offaly, they don’t even have a beach,” said my husband as we piled swimsuits and towels into the car after watching Cork’s U20 hurling team beat Offaly and lift the James Nowlan Cup.

One of the (many) wonderful things about living in Cork, apart from being able to console yourself with an U20 title when your senior team has prematurely left the championship, is that for most parts of the county a stunning sandy beach is less than an hour away.

I live within 30 minutes of Kinsale’s Dock Beach and I always feel lucky that a beautiful beach is so accessible. I’m not the only one who is a fan, it is often chock-a-block. If your parallel parking skills aren’t up to scratch, forget about visiting on a sunny weekend.

My favourite time to go is early morning with a flask of caffeine before the crowds arrive, or early evening when the crowds have taken their sunburned shoulders home.

Popular beaches like Dock Beach are perfect for my favourite seaside pursuit - people-watching. As we lap up the sun and the summer vibes with the current spell of good weather, keep an eye out for these classic Cork beach-going species.

Determined digger

Respect to the two young fellas who dug an enormous 3ft trench in the middle of Dock beach on Sunday afternoon. They must have been only 9 or 10 years old, but their determination to dig as deep as they could was commendable.

Every beach has an army of children who shun the seaside delights of swimming and 99s and assign themselves the serious and very important job of digging a hole, a moat or a causeway to the shoreline to fill a moat.

These mini civil engineers and builders laugh at piffling sandcastles made with plastic buckets and aspire to Discovery Channel Big Engineering type sand constructions. They are understandably upset when their parents announce, “Times up, we’re going home!”

They walk away tired but proud of what they achieved, a hole that other kids are going to wreck in mere minutes.

Some enterprising person should run Sand Camps in the summer holidays, charging parents a fortune to deposit kids at a beach with a shovel for five hours. The only activities would be digging holes and building fortresses. Guaranteed happy campers!

Ultra-prepared mum

She arrives with a beach trolley wagon Tetris packed with every conceivable item a family might need for a day at the beach. Camping seats, windbreaker, sunshade, Dryrobes, flasks, cooler box, football, buckets, spades, changes of clothe,s and every snack traditionally consumed at the beach are all in there.

If Lidl’s middle aisle ever launches a kitchen sink for the beach, she’ll have it.

Every meal is catered for. From the cooler box, she can feed at least six humans for the whole day. Little rolls for lunch, a bag of crisps when tempers start getting frayed because of the collapsed moat (see above), an endless supply of hot and cold drinks...

If an ultra-prepared mom has older kids, she might materialise an inflatable paddle board and life vests mid-afternoon.

I am in awe of her organisation, she is truly a fascinating beach species to behold.

Reluctant swimmer

Don’t bother telling me the water’s lovely, it’s never warm, but much entertainment can be had watching people’s different methods of entry into frigid Irish seawater.

Holding up as much of their body out of the water as possible as they tiptoe in is a classic move of the reluctant swimmer.

They can often be seen submerged to the thighs with their elbows and hands stretched out the water, as if they could launch into the chicken dance in a moment.

Keeping fingers warm for a few minutes longer is not going to save them from the forthcoming cold clutch of numbness.

It is like watching the slowest and most painful removal of a bandage from a crusted knee.

I have full sympathies for the reluctant swimmer, I identify as one myself. I need it to be 25 degrees with no wind for me to chance a dip. It’s a hard station, especially if you hang out with hardy swimmers who enter the sea as if it is a welcome warm bath at the end of a long day of physical labour. In my head, I shake my fist at these insouciant swimmers.

Hardy swimmer

There are a variety of species of hardy swimmers to be spotted at the beach.

Teenage boys in gold chains and colourful Penney’s swimming shorts, stampeding and roaring into the waves. They don’t feel the cold because they are high on testosterone and friendship.

Very tanned older people, who arrive in a Dryrobe, stride unflinchingly into the sea for a few brief strokes, and leave the beach straight after their coastal constitutional.

The grey hair and old knees are the only indicators of their advanced years. 

They swim all year long which is probably why they look so lithe and lovely.

Turbo-charged toddlers, so thrilled at a day at the beach and determined to splash around until they collapse in crankiness, are another species of hardy swimmers.

They can be seen carting around a swollen swim nappy behind them, oblivious that their lips are going blue and resisting any efforts by their parents to steer them towards warmer beach activities.

They are cute initially, but spot the hasty exit later when “so much fun” has turned into “too much fun” and the sandy, sobbing two-year-old has to have a nap immediately.