Last week the National Aquatic Centre in Blanchardstown hosted the Irish National Championships where elite swimmers from across the country competed with each other and with swimmers from the UK, Italy, Czech and other countries. All of the swimmers had to reach very exacting times in their events and getting there at all is a serious achievement. Celtic Waves was represented by Ashlee in the under 14s and Zac in the under 15s and both of them put in fantastic performances where they achieved their best ever times in their events. To cap it all both of them made the final of their 50metres freestyle which puts them inside the top 10 in the country in that event. In each of their other events they narrowly missed out on reaching the final. Unfortunately Petr couldn't make it to the event but he deserves huge credit for also achieving the times.

This all comes off the back of some great performances at the Division 2 championships in Limerick which saw many of our swimmers achieving Division 1 standards after the entry date had passed. Next year we will be hoping for a bigger representation at the Division 1 and we have a number of swimmers who will be knocking on the door of the Division 2s for the first time.

So we've reached the end of the season and all the swimmers in the club should be proud of their achievements. Every single one of you has trained hard and improved their swimming and all of you have tested yourself in new events and unfamiliar surroundings We look forward to seeing you all back at training in September and hope to have our first unbroken year of training, competition and social events since 2019.

Enjoy your holidays and I hope you get plenty of enjoyment out of taking your swimming skills and water confidence out of the pool and into the sea, rivers and lakes over the Summer.

Thanks very much to our excellent coaching team of Liam, Sheila, Elaine and Stephen who have been brilliant all year. Thanks also to all the parents and guardians who volunteered their time and expertise to help out the club over the year.

Here are the club's National Division 1 results