About Us

What started as a mutual love of swimming and assisted motivation in training for the Galway bay swim has led to the foundation of a sea swimming club with over 60 members. The club actively promotes the benefits of swimming, safe use of the local environment and the development of swimmers. Atlantic Masters is a community for those with an interest in swimming in the Galway area.

Atlantic Masters SC are an enthusiastic community of sea swimmers, which now proudly boasts of its 60 members.
Atlantic Masters is now the biggest outdoor swimming club in the West of Ireland who make the most of the Atlantic all year round with pool sessions during the winter.

We are competent swimmers, of all different levels, who swim mainly outdoors.

The clubs aim is to train its members under the watch full eye of their coach. To nurture, encourage, support and include swimmers from all backgrounds and abilities to achieve personal goals.

Members are also encouraged to compete in the many outdoor competitive swims, which are held around the country during the outdoor swimming season. Members have competed in outdoor swimming events, ranging from 1.2k to 13k all over Ireland and have
won many trophies in many categories.

Since 2014 the Clubs members have raised in excess of €65,000 for Cancer Care West. In 2018 the club had 22 members swim across Galway Bay, the largest representation from any club and most of them for the first time.

In September of 2018 the club had its largest number of competitors for their annual swim at Lynches pier in Kinvara the birth place of Atlantic Masters. Just under 100 swimmers from across Ireland took part in the 2.7k swim.

Founded in 2014 by Helen Colfer, Mark Dwyer and Fergal Madden after a chance meeting swimming in the Maldron Hotel in Oranmore. The trio quickly discovered a shared passion and a lack of a open swimming club in the Galway region, the solution, start one.

Initally coming to together for training and a ambitious target of swimming Galway Bay, the trio have gone to not only to personal achievements of multiple marathon swims, an English Channel and 100’s of kilometers swimming around the buoys in Salthill, they also set in motion this crazy community we now call Atlantic Masters.

Catch Mark in the right mood and he might even tell you why there is a budgie in our club logo 😉