A total of nine Castlebar swimmers travelled to Limerick during the first weekend in February to compete in the Gerry Ryan Memorial Gala, held annually over two days, and established in honour of the late Limerick swimming coach. As always, it gave the young swimmers invaluable experience in the impressive 50 meter pool at the University of Limerick, which will stand them in good stead over the next few months at other long-course competitions.

Heather Fadden: Gold in Limerick and Tuam.

Eleven-year-old Heather Fadden, in her debut outing at this level, had a very successful competition, capturing gold medals in the 50m and 200m breaststroke, with times of 42.49 and 3:25.49 respectively. She also scooped a bronze medal in the 100m breaststroke with an impressive personal best of 1:34.69, and gained further PBs in the 50m butterfly, the 50m freestyle and 100m freestyle.

There were further wins for Siofra Horan, who took three silvers in the 200m , 100m and 50m breaststroke in her age category, with times of 2:57.22, 1:23.00, and 38.33; for Mark Dervan, who took gold in the 200m breaststroke with a time of 2:49.67, and bronze in the 200m IM (2:39.66); for Paula McDonagh, who took bronze in the 100m freestyle (1:06.23); for Jamie Murphy, who took silver in the 100m breaststroke with a five-second PB of 1:24.53; and for Cillian Melly, who took bronze in the 200m fly, with a PB of 2:22.60. There were some other fine performances and a scattering of PBs for Aoibheann Hennigan, Caoimhe Hennigan and Conor Melly.

Siofra Horan: Three silvers in Limerick.

Two weeks previously, there were some equally impressive performances at a gala in Tuam, and the swimmers acquitted themselves very well, netting some more impressive personal best times. Heather Fadden took gold in the 100m breaststroke with a time of 1:35.21; Edel Egan had a fine swim in the 100m freestyle, taking gold for her PB of 1:05.18, while Mark Dervan took a third gold in the 100m breaststroke with a two-second PB of 1:19.78. Mark also won bronze in the 400m freestyle (5:05.34).

Mark Dervan: Gold and bronze.

For Paula McDonagh, the 400m freestyle also proved a good race, as she knocked almost three seconds off her previous best time to take silver with a finish time of 4:56.64. She also took bronze in the 100m freestyle, with a time of 1:07.32. Niamh Heneghan took an astounding 29 seconds off her 400m freestyle PB to finish in second place with a time of 4:52.48. Aisling Grady finished the 100m breaststroke in 1:25.51 to take bronze, while Jamie Murphy continues to record improvements in his 100m breaststroke time, this time taking 4 seconds off to finish on 1:21.58, earning him a silver medal.

There were some other impressive performances on the day - Niamh Breslin recorded PBs in all three of her races, particularly the 400m freestyle, where she gained an 8-second personal best of 5:38.43. Aaron Doherty and Sean O'Connor took 11 and 12 seconds respectively from their previous 400m freestyle times, finishing in 5:31.18 and 5:50.36. Siofra Horan gained PBs in the 100m fly, and the 100m & 400m freestyle. Ambre Fadden and Laura Fahy took PBs in the 100m fly and the 400m freestyle, while Siofra McHale and Hazel Coen gained theirs in the 100m backstroke and 100m freestyle. There was a whopping 24-second PB of 5:42.89 for Hannah Grady in the 400m freestyle, and a 12-second one for Meaghan Coen in the same stroke (5:38.93). There were further PBs for Aoibheann Hennigan (1:34.03 in the 100m breaststroke), James English (1:24.15 in the 100m freestyle), Aaron O'Doherty (1:34.19 in the 100m breaststroke) and Caoimhe Hennigan (4:59.85 in the 400m freestyle). Also swimming well for Castlebar was Una Togher.