It was a summer day, but true to tradition the sky was overcast. The crowd would have it no other way. Comfort was not the word of the day. Comfort was a word for those bathing in a warm blue sea somewhere tropical and remote, not for those swimming in the Liffey. The dark sky only added to the fever of the crowd. They themselves matched the sky. Soft greens and dirty blues and every other color all blending together to a mass of gray, at least if seen in the distance, which is what Darraugh saw when he leaned out over the river to look at the matching crowd across the way. A swarm of people, gray and mushy and terribly loud. The noise they created was not a roar, but instead a dull mummer amplified a hundred times and then a hundred times more, not shocking, but insistent, pushing, demanding.

He looked down at the water saw spots of oil shimmering purple and green on the top, just here and there. The water itself was black as Guinness and looked cold, freezing even. He couldn't imagine jumping in. He looked for a drowned rat, always a pleasure to point out to the squeamish and twice as much fun today, but saw only scraggly seaweed and a few brown bottles, dirty and half full of river water. He thought about spitting to watch the white foamy drop fall and splash, raising the river just a touch above high tide, but decided it would be a little too coarse. There was a woman beside him after all.

Behind and above him sat the better folks, lawyers and civil servants and protestants with their wives and friends, drinking good liquor. They sat on the balconies of shops and offices and the woman wore fur collars. He felt a smug joy in knowing his view was better, closer to the action, despite his worn clothing and near urchin status. He began to reconsider the possibility of spitting, perhaps when no one was looking, and then saw the swimmers a few hundred yards off. The great jumble of sound splintered and grew until it peaked just as the first of the swimmers arrived. Darraugh waited until just as they came parallel to his position and then added his voice to the massive wave of sound.

"Go boys! Give 'em hell!" He wasn't sure who exactly would be receiving this hell, but the words felt good anyway.

There they swam, furiously slashing the water pulling through, kicking madly. Most of these men had better form on other days, but the pure horror of what they were swimming through made them slap the water harder and less gracefully than usual. The frantic energy was what made the crowd so large. The urgency carried well. It spread through the assembled masses, people of all types, infecting them making them cry out in joy and almost in fear. Just standing on the shore meant experiencing vicariously the feel and smell and adrenaline rush of splashing half naked in the grimy, forbidding Liffey.

Darraugh quieted with the rest of the crowd, the slowest swimmers received no maddening shouts, just a spattering of polite applause. He wished the day were sunnier as he made his way back towards the street and the buildings. It was only mid-morning and it looked as if the rest of the day would remain dreary.