50 Irish Speakers To Swim In Every Coastal County In Aid of West Bank Refugee Centre Project

11th April 2025

Lorna Siggins

Swim locations - 50 participants from the Irish language community are undertaking the challenge organised by Conradh na Gaeilge over two days starting early on Saturday morning (April 12) at Baile Brigín (Balbriggan) in Dublin

A group of 50 Irish speakers will take to the sea in every coastal county in Ireland this weekend to raise money for a project in a West Bank refugee camp in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

The 50 participants from the Irish language community are undertaking the challenge organised by Conradh na Gaeilge over two days starting early on Saturday morning (April 12) at Baile Brigín (Balbriggan) in Dublin.

They aim to raise funds for ACLAÍ Palestine, described as a core project of the Lajee Centre in Aida refugee camp, in the West Bank in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

ACLAÍ Palestine

The Lajee Centre is a community-based grassroots creative cultural centre that provides support and refuge for the people of the Aida camp, and from the camps and surrounding areas.

The Lajee Centre is run by and for refugees, and various people from the Irish-language community have spent time volunteering there in recent years.

In December 2024, a branch of Conradh na Gaeilge was registered at the Lajee Centre - the first branch ever in Palestine.

In 2020, ACLAÍ Palestine opened as a central unit in the Lajee Centre as a result of the enthusiastic work of a small group of Irish people, according to Conradh na Gaeilge.

ACLAÍ provides essential space and services to the community: exercise classes for men and women, boxing classes, yoga classes, and specific services for people with disabilities and health problems.

Seven trainers from Aida camp work at the centre, with over 300 people from the camp community taking part in the events and services provided free of charge by the team each week.

Aodhán Ó Deá, Conradh na Gailge Stiúrthóir Forbartha and Leas-Ardrúnaí said that no organisation had run a sea swim quite like this to its knowledge, and it has done it twice before.

The last time was in 2014 to raise money for Pádraig Schaler, a young Irish man who was seriously injured after he was knocked off his bike by a truck while on a J1 visa visit to the US in 2013.

The Swim for Pádraig challenge in 2014 raised 32,000 euro.

All of the funds from the two days of sea swimming this weekend will go to ACLAÍ Palestine, and donations can be made at idonate.ie/snamh25

Published in Sea Swim

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Swim

About The Author

Lorna Siggins

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Lorna Siggins is a print and radio reporter, and a former Irish Times western correspondent. She is the author of Search and Rescue: True stories of Irish Air-Sea Rescues and the Loss of R116 (2022); Everest Callling (1994) on the first Irish Everest expedition; Mayday! Mayday! (2004); and Once Upon a Time in the West: the Corrib gas controversy (2010). She is also co-producer with Sarah Blake of the Doc on One "Miracle in Galway Bay" which recently won a Celtic Media Award

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