2025 Irish Winter Swimming Championships
- December 12-14, 2025
- National Aquatic Centre, Dublin, Ireland
- Short Course Meters (25m)
- Psych Sheets
- Meet Central
- Live Results
- Live Results also on Meet Mobile: “2025 Irish National Winter Championships”
- Recaps: Day 1
A duet of Irish National Records fell on day 2 of the 2025 Irish Winter Championships on Saturday: one in a primary event (Eoin Corby of Limerick in the 200 breaststroke), and one in a secondary event (European Champion Ellen Walshe in the 200 free).
The Olympian Walshe kicked off the record setting when she won the 200 free in 1:53.72. A race she doesn’t swim that often on the national or international stage, that dropped four-and-a-half seconds off her previous best time of 1:58.24 from 2023.
While historically this race has been an afterthought for the IM and butterfly specialist, in the 2025 long course season she really turned her focus to it. Between February and June, she swam the six best long course times of her career, improving her personal best from 2:05.76 (2022) to 1:58.88.
The record coming into the day was a 1:55.94 done by Victoria Catterson at the 2023 European Short Course Championships. Walshe first cleared that in prelims in 1:55.23, then again in finals.
She now has a total of eight Irish Records in individual short course events out of a possible 19; she also holds 18 total Irish Records.
She is entered in the 100 fly and 400 free on Sunday, giving her two more chances at records; she won the 100 free in 53.18 on Friday, missing that Irish mark by .15 seconds.
Corby followed that later in the session by cracking his own National mark in his best event: the 200 breaststroke.
He swam 2:05.76, which shaved .13 seconds off his own previous best of 2:05.89 from last week’s European Short Course Championships. Before that, it stood at his time of 2:06.45 from the 2024 World Short Course Swimming Championships.
The last swimmer besides Corby to hold the record was Uiseann Cooke, who swam 2:06.81 at the 2021 Irish Short Course Championships.
Splits Comparison:
| Eoin Corby | Eoin Corby | Eoin Corby | |
| New Irish Record | Last Week (Old Irish Record) |
December 2024 (Prior Record)
|
|
| 50m | 28.55 | 28.30 | 28.59 |
| 100m | 31.80 (1:00.35) | 31.56 (59.86) | 31.70 (1:00.29) |
| 150m | 32.53 | 32.88 | 32.7 |
| 200m | 32.88 (1:05.41) | 33.15 (1:06.03) | 33.46 (1:06.16) |
| 2:05.76 | 2:05.89 | 2:06.45 |
Corby’s latest record-setting swim came with a very different approach than his prior performances, using more of a back-half swim to dip under his time from a week ago.
He won the race by almost nine seconds.
Other Notable Saturday Swims (Day 2):
- John Shortt, who was Friday’s record breaker in the 200 IM, won two events on Saturday, though none with new national records. In the 100 backstroke, one of his primary events, Shortt won in 50.25 – missing his personal best and Irish Record time of 50.10 done at last week’s European Championships. He later won the 200 free in 1:46.07, which is a personal best by more than five seconds. National Record holder Evan Bailey scratched that 200 free.
- Lottie Cullen kept her sweep of the backstroke races alive in the 100, winning in 57.61. That comes after she won the 50 on Friday in 26.77.
- 26-year-old Emma Coulter won the 50 fly in 26.77, but it was the 4th-place finisher Lucy O’Brien who got a record. Her time of 27.47 in prelims is the Irish girls’ junior national record in the event, shaving .05 seconds off her own mark from a year ago. She was slightly slower in finals at 27.50.
- The women’s 400 IM was won by 13-year-old Chloe Stewart in 4:54.75, taking advantage of the absence of Walshe from her primary IM races.
