Swim Ireland has been passionate about driving female participation in aquatics for many years. It has delivered numerous successful programmes and collaborated with various stakeholders to ensure programmes and initiatives remain at the forefront of Women in Sport across Ireland. Swim Ireland is pleased to launch their new Women in Sport Action Plan 2024-2026, which builds on our successes to date, revisiting and reimagining our most popular programmes and adding innovation into the mix, while looking ahead to the next two years.

This plan encapsulates our vision to create an island of swimmers. An island that welcomes all genders, all ages, all diversities, and all abilities. It recognises sport, and specifically aquatics, as an important enabler for development and women’s empowerment. Working together with Sport Ireland, National Governing Bodies (NGBs), Pool Operators, Local Sports Partnerships (LSPs) and community organisations, and of course our male allies, to deliver the objectives is core.

Our plan is aligned to the four key pillars of the Sport Ireland Women in Sport Strategy:

  • Active Participation
  • Leadership & Governance
  • Coaching & Officiating
  • Visibility

We target two key groups under each pillar; teenage girls and women using initiatives and programmes to increase engagement, participation and to ensure we tell the story of the women involved in our sport. This plan pledges our commitment to Women in Sport, and we will continue to advocate and contribute to greater female representation at all levels of our sport supported by Sport Ireland and the Department of Sport.

WHAT’S NEW?

We are very excited about a number of new projects in our new Women in Sport Plan.

Recognising that teenage girls are a key target audience, a new area of development for us will be Artistic Swimming building on the hugely popular Aqua Moves programme piloted in 2023.

In 2024 we will also launch an online Athlete Hub. An information portal that will provide athletes with the knowledge and skills to develop inside and outside of the pool. The Athlete Hub will include content specifically for females of all ages providing health information and learning resources to support females in and out of the pool. Not just for females, the Athlete Hub will cater for male athletes also.

We are also delighted to develop an ‘Introduction to strength and conditioning’ education tool for club athletes across the disciplines.

Swim Ireland CEO, Sarah Keane, said: “We are delighted to launch our new Women in Sport Action Plan 2024-2026 In line with the Sport Ireland Women in Sport Strategy and the European Union publication ‘Towards more gender equality in sport’. We are focused on continuous action to advance gender equality in all areas of our sport and organisation to ensure females reach their full potential from grass roots to performance.”

The full Swim Ireland Women in Sport Action 2024-2026 plan is now available.