Frequented as a "Gentleman Only" swimming location from around 250 years ago, the 40 foot has seen nudist bathing, protests, featured on TV and has inspired at least one famous Irish author.
The name "Forty Foot" is somewhat obscure. On an 1833 map, the Marine Road (located 1.5 km (0.93 mi)
to the west) was named the Forty Foot Road, possibly because it was 40 ft (12 m) wide; the name may
have been transferred to the swimming place, which was called the Forty-Foot Hole in the 19th
century.
Other accounts claim the name was given by fishermen because it was forty feet (6+2⁄3 fathoms) deep,
but the water in the area is no deeper than 20 ft (6.1 m; 3.3 fathoms).[6] Others have attempted to
link it to the 40th (the 2nd Somersetshire) Regiment of Foot, who supposedly bathed there, but they
were stationed at Richmond Barracks in Inchicore.
At first, the Forty Foot was exclusively a male bathing place, and Sandycove Bathers Association, a men's swimming club was established. Owing to its relative isolation and gender-restrictions it became a popular spot for nudists. The association resisted the efforts of women to use the 40 Foot for many years.
On 24th July 1974, about a dozen of female equal-rights activists ("Dublin City Women's Invasion
Force") went swimming, and sat with placards over the 'Gentlemen only' rules at the 40 Foot,
starting a new era of mixed swimming.
In 1989, a group of women swam nude in protest against male nude swimming, watched by over 1000
onlookers. In 2014, the Sandycove Bathers Association finally ended the ban on women club members,
and they may now use the onsite changing rooms and clubhouse kitchen.
James Joyce and Oliver St. John Gogarty once resided at the Martello tower together. It is now the
James Joyce Tower and Museum. The opening section of Joyce's Ulysses is set here, with the
characters Stephen Dedalus and Buck Mulligan being partly based on Joyce himself and Gogarty,
respectively. Buck Mulligan described the sea as "The snotgreen sea. The scrotumtightening sea."
The Forty Foot also featured in the novels At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O'Brien (1939), At Swim, Two
Boys by Jamie O'Neill (2001) and Nessuna notizia dello scrittore scomparso by Daniele Bresciani
(2017).