S.O.S. Dun Laoghaire seafront

I took the air at Dun Laoghaire thinking it might clear my head but my stroll was interrupted by a polite but insistent chap handing out leaflets bearing the alarming slogan S.O.S. in bold type. I normally throw these things away but there was no litter bin and I’m far too green around the gills these days to drop it on the promenade so I made the mistake of glancing at the damned thing. Save Our Seafront was the urgent message. It seems like such a simple, inoffensive appeal nobody could argue with it, could they? Well, I can, for one.
The idea of salvation has deep roots in our culture. Think of a man in a long white beard and green cloak lighting fires on hilltops and banishing snakes and you’re on the right track. Fire ‘n brimstone preachers, rosary beads and the dark confessional are all part of our collective consciousness, whether you like them or not. We are bombarded with appeals to save all manner of things, whales, birds (feathered variety), Africa, Antarctica, the marching season. So susceptible are we that all it takes is for some deranged nutter to mount a podium and demand we save the scrapings from his grandmother’s bathtub and all criticism is suspended without further comment or enquiry.
Enough I say. It’s time we sought relief from this salvation nonsense. A line must be drawn. A stand must be made. This far and no further. What better way to turn back the tide of tosh than to take a critical look at that foul, stinking relic, Dun Laoghaire baths?
The baths in question are a crumbling reminder of a long-past age when riding the train out to Dun Laoghaire for a dip was a treat as great as a modern weekend-break to Barcelona or Malaga. The baths were constructed in the 1930’s when the idea of outdoor bathing was in its heyday. It seems hardly polite to mention that this was part of a wider cult of mass-physical fitness and exercise much favoured by the fascists. Hitler and Mussolini were admirers. So was Franco. No doubt there were more than a few blue shirts hanging on hooks in the gents’ changing rooms while their owners disported their bare flesh in the cold Celtic sun back in the good old days.
Smaller examples of outdoor baths can be found at Blackrock and elsewhere around the country. Corbally baths on the Shannon near Limerick is another example which, like all the others, has fallen into disuse and decay. The Brits had them. France had them too, still has a few, in fact. They have the weather for that sort of thing but, even there, outdoor baths have given way to modern health-spas and all-weather facilities.
The truth is that outdoor bathing in our cold climate is about as popular as a party political broadcast. The fad lasted as long as there was nothing better on offer but as soon as Ryanair and modern health spas took-off the open-air baths became the favoured haunt of rats and exhibitionists. The place is bricked-up now, closed to the public for safety reasons so it’s less than useless. The ruins are an eyesore and an impediment to anyone who’d like to take a stroll along the seafront.
No amount of wishful thinking, or public money, will revive a fashion whose time is long past. The baths died not because of any malign policy or official neglect. They died because people stopped using them and there is no sign they will ever come back in numbers sufficient to justify the investment needed to re-open them. I rarely sympathise with politicians but on this issue they have an unenviable task. The S.O.S. brigade are talking nonsense and should be told to get lost but politicians are easily intimidated by noisy protesters. The “saviours” should be required to show how much their daft proposals would cost and then ask the public in clear terms to cough-up for facilities nobody wants, in the form of higher taxation. Where is the politician with courage, or integrity enough, to face down the distopian nutters? Come on you politicians. Let’s get the Throw Out Tosh (T.O.T.) campaign underway without delay. There’s your slogan. I’ll lend it to you free, gratis and for nothing. I can’t say fairer than that now can I?