Gala Rock

The local placename Gala Rock came to my attention a couple of years ago, but with no exact location, just that it was near Bray. Local man Maurice O’B was checking the Facebook this Christmas and solved the query! This is at Bray or Naylor’s Cove and the sea baths were a very popular attraction from the 1930s to the 1960s, drawing large crowds in summer.

Maurice says the smaller of the two pools seen here was called the Baby Pool. Children progressed on from this to two bigger pools, one of which was deep enough for diving competitions. After gaining competence in the sheltered waters of the pool, Maurice writes that the next test was to swim from the pools in the open sea as far as the Gala Rock which he points out here on the photo. That marked you out as an able swimmer. He himself was doing this at 5 and 6 years of age.

The map extract here is from our detailed Wicklow East 1:25,000 map, available for purchase online or in selected shops.

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