The Magic of a Mass Dip in the Nip

Weeks after her mastectomy, a cancer survivor organized a group skinny-dip that has set a world record, raised a million euros and become a cathartic annual extravaganza for generations of women.

This piece is the third in our series, The Ever-Present Liquid, a special collaboration from Narratively and Creative Nonfiction exploring the shape-shifting magic and destructiveness of water in all its forms. You can learn more about this series and experience the rest of the stories as we publish them here each week throughout September.

Illustration by Aidi Riera | Story edited by Jesse Sposato

There’s a raucous party going on in, of all places, the car park overlooking a quaint, little-known private beach in Wicklow County, Ireland. For hours on this chilly June morning, clusters of women stand around, painting each others’ bodies, giggling and swapping flasks full of whiskey and stories about what brought them there. 

Over the chatter, one of the leaders employs a megaphone to make an announcement: It’s time, at last, to move the gathering to the beach below. Everyone stops what she’s doing and parades down a winding set of stairs to take her place on the sand, gazing toward the lightly crashing waves.

Many are already naked. Others wear T-shirts for as long as possible or don flashy accessories, like pink wigs or strategically placed boas, that they start to either secure or remove. (The only clothed people are the group’s appointed security guard and photographer.)

A progressively louder countdown becomes everyone’s call to impending action. By the count of “one,” nude woman after nude woman — bodies of every size and shape — runs into the frigid waters, hollering and squealing as she goes, taking the yelps a notch higher still as bare skin comes into contact with the sea’s chill. It’s a symphony of vibrant exclamations and a ballet of rebounding figures in constant motion.

Some women stay in the water for seconds, others for minutes, holding hands with each other as they bob up and down for warmth. The ones who are acting wildly out of character, especially, bask in giddiness about what they’ve managed to do. Tears accompany smiles, friendly chatter continues and soon, everyone is back on the sand again to towel off and take the spectacle elsewhere. 

It’s all part of a unique annual tradition for a growing group of women — in their 20s all the way up to their 70s and even 80s — to let go of their inhibitions, disrobe and set off for a swim in the Irish Sea. Strip and Dip, as it’s called, is the brainchild of a cancer survivor named Dee Featherstone, who is in her mid-50s and works in digital marketing. After rejoicing over the end of her treatment, Featherstone decided she wanted to raise money for a cancer-focused charity as a way to pay it forward. She thought an epic skinny-dip would make for a more memorable fund-raising activity than, say, a bake sale or trivia night. 

So far it has paid off, as the 11 Dips that have taken place have cumulatively raised more than 1.2 million euros for Aoibheann’s Pink Tie, an Irish children's cancer charity. (Participants raise funds by getting loved ones to sponsor them in the same way cyclists and runners do for specially designated races.)

A group of ladies heading down to the beach at the 2017 Strip and Dip. (Photo courtesy Dee Featherstone)

The first Dip, in 2013, featured only Featherstone’s friends and family, a group just less than 50. Over the next few years, there was steady growth, as previous Dippers returned, each time bringing new participants with them. By the fourth year, the number of skinny-dippers was in the hundreds. 

Then, in 2018, the sixth Dip became a globally known phenomenon, when more than 2,000 women joined in on the naked fun, smashing a Guinness World Record for the largest skinny-dip anywhere. (The Dip record still stands.) Except for 2020, when organizers hit the pause button because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Strip and Dip has taken place every June since it started, becoming a life-changing empowerment festival of sorts for Dippers to celebrate their bodies and rejoice in their womanhood.

I should know. I’ve taken part in three Strip and Dips, including the one that broke the Guinness World Record. 

The first time I participated, in June 2017, I was freshly grieving the loss of my mom, who had died of breast cancer three months prior. Cancer had played a major role in our lives for years by that point. My mom would endure treatment and be OK for a while — until she wasn’t, requiring a new form of treatment, usually harsher than the one that came before. I assumed this bittersweet whiplash would be the norm for a long time. Then, in February 2017, it became clear that my mom was only getting worse. My brother, sister and I rushed to her home in California to be by her side. During her final moments, we tearfully told her that we loved her, and would be fine without her (not because we believed it, mind you, but because we knew she needed to hear it). 

Then, in what felt like a whirlwind, we organized her funeral, divided her possessions and scrambled to get back to our lives (my brother in New York, my sister in Washington, D.C., and I back in Ireland, where I’d been living for a few years).

When I returned to my job, as a producer for a technology conference company, I tamped down my feelings so I could throw my energy into the summer event we were organizing. Over those next few months, I tried to carry on without showing the frustration and anger that was stewing inside. But under the mask of productivity, I was silently struggling, in denial about the loss and how much it had devastated me. Looking back, I can see that I was searching, that I needed to channel my grief into something tangible and find others who could relate to my struggle so that I didn’t have to burden my friends with it.

Discovering the Strip and Dip was a complete accident. I came across the group’s Facebook page one night when I was sleepless and scouring the internet for support groups and other ways to outsource my sadness. The name alone drew me in, and, on a whim, I signed up. Trying new things has always been a coping mechanism, and I needed to do something. If nothing else, I told myself, the event would serve as a brief distraction and maybe be a random wacky anecdote to use in the future. 

Instead, what I found was a community of women who were allowing themselves to feel and openly express the wide gamut of emotions that come with enduring cancer: the discomfort, the heartache, the resentment, yet also the humor, love, delight, even awe at being alive. 

That day on the beach, I saw women showing off scars from cancer surgeries as if they were badges of armor. Some adorned their exposed flesh with tattoos and painted on inspirational messages, transforming their bare bodies into canvases and poster boards. It felt like a festival where the assignment was to embrace unhinged freedom, and everyone understood it perfectly. While stripping away clothing, Dippers also stripped away facades, letting the lighter, more positive emotions be as present and loud as the darker ones. 

Their courage and vulnerability inspired me to release all of the emotions I’d been suppressing. I allowed the feelings to wash over me as I jumped in full throttle. In the water, my tears mixed with the salty waves, and I found myself hugging people I had only met moments before, switching between ugly-crying and cackling with glee. Swimming was cathartic, the first semblance of joyful play I’d had since my mom’s passing. 

As a result, my involvement in that Dip — and two more the following years, including with a close friend who joined me — turned into a celebratory tribute to my mother’s fierce and kindhearted spirit. To me, Strip and Dips offer an unexpectedly vibrant atmosphere in which to have a profound collective experience that feels safe, emotionally layered and — because of all the singing that occurs, the over-the-top costumes people wear and the party vibes — also absurdly jubilant.

The author on the right with her friend Yvonne, in 2019, getting ready to plunge Strip and Dip style, with a flask and grass skirts. (Photo courtesy Dena Levitz)

As Featherstone explains it, Dippers come away with unshakable bonds and are fundamentally changed by the healing powers of the water, which acts like a cleansing cold plunge.

“Some of these women go in and are petrified, and they come out as if they’re reborn,” she says. “They come out with a different mentality after being in that water. People who hated their jobs, they get a new job. People who were worried about [something that] to them was huge — they see these women, some with colostomy bags, some with no boobs, some big ladies and some thin, and they come out with a new headspace. They’re like, ‘What was I worried about?’ The water does that.”

For Featherstone, it all goes back to September 2012. That’s when, at a routine medical appointment, doctors found two large tumors and discovered that an aggressive form of breast cancer was the culprit. Straightaway, she began a six-month chemotherapy regimen, followed by a mastectomy, radiation and a stint of what she calls “grueling breast reconstruction.” Thankfully, the battery of treatments worked, and Featherstone’s health has thrived since. It was just after her mastectomy, in 2013, that Featherstone made the decision to turn her ordeal into something positive.

One night soon after her surgery, having had a few glasses of wine, she says, an idea popped into her head to organize a massive skinny-dip as a way to fund-raise. “I put it up on my Facebook page. My friends were just like, ‘Absolutely no way whatsoever.’ So I blackmailed them all,” Featherstone says, with a chuckle. “I said, ‘Listen, I’ve got one boob and I’m totally bald and I’m doing it, so you have to also.’”

On a Saturday morning a few weeks later, that initial group of friends and family members took the plunge, and the Strip and Dip was born. It brought in about 24,000 euros, the equivalent of almost $20,000 at the time. A buddy of Featherstone’s helped her identify the perfect site, a secluded, idyllic beach surrounded by cliffs that is less than 50 kilometers from the center of Dublin — Magheramore, which is still the site of the annual Dip — and another friend named Wayne Jones came on as the “head honcho,” a guard who ensures that the unclothed participants are uninterrupted. 

The first Dip fell on a drizzly, gray day, but the spirit of revelry and camaraderie was undeniably there, weather be damned. Featherstone describes everyone going to a nearby pub after the swim, where drinking, singing and an impromptu reading of a witty original poem about the Dip by one of the ladies turned it into an affair that everyone insisted had to be repeated. The thinking was that if each person present returned with a handful of new Dippers the following year, the gathering could keep growing — and they could continue to raise even more money for charity. Friends bringing friends is still the main marketing tool for the Strip and Dip.

Sinead Hamill, one of just six people who have joined in for every single Dip, grew up with Featherstone. She says it’s not terribly surprising that her childhood friend, always known to be bold and lively, would undertake something like this. Just prior to the first Dip, Hamill had suffered a stroke (she’s been in good health since) and had recently seen Featherstone at a memorial for a mutual friend. 

“The two of us, Dee and I, had the same view: Fuck it,” Hamill says. “We both [started saying] yes to everything even before the person had finished asking the question.”

So, of course, Hamill was in for this adventure, even if it meant stripping all the way down. Her lasting memory from the first Dip is doing cartwheels with some of the other women on the beach and giving each other piggyback rides before heading for the water, all stark naked. “Nobody cared. No one else was there,” she says. “We made big signs that said ‘Kicking the Shite out of Cancer.’”

Dippers preparing to get in the water, 2017. (Photo by Christine Taylor)

Beyond the fun, clothing-free antics, Hamill says that, from the start, the Dips felt meaningful. She recalls an early joiner who had undergone a double mastectomy and whose marriage had ended because the woman no longer felt comfortable undressing in front of her husband. 

“She came to the Dip solo, so we held her hands going into the water,” Hamill says. “When she came out, it was like the water had baptized her and created a stronger, more able, more confident woman. It was just stunning.”

It’s actually Hamill who crafted the original poem about the Dip, and she has since become the group’s unofficial cheeky poet in residence. Now, she keeps the ritual going by writing a new poem every year, usually last-minute on the car ride to the beach, and then reciting it to the others at some point during Dip Day for a laugh. 

One of her favorite poems is from last year’s “Decade Dip” (it marked 10 years since the Strip and Dip debut), and includes this verse:

Some take to the water with a scream
A few may even hum
Others are rendered speechless
With ice water up their bum
No one cares if you are heavy
It doesn’t matter if you’re thin
We’re all just in our nudie pants
And we cheer when we get in

The first year that I plunged into the frigid waters, in 2017, about 350 other women did as well. Featherstone, late one evening afterward, found herself searching the internet, curious to know if there was a world record for skinny-dipping. It turns out the prior record, in Perth, Australia, in 2015, was 786 dippers. “Highly beatable,” she tells me she thought at the time. And so, without telling anyone, she reached out to Guinness and began a grassroots campaign to beat the record. She got women to sign up other women in a much more deliberate way than before. If the Dip could attain Guinness World Record-breaking status, she thought, more attention and, as a result, more money would surely come.

In the end, for 2018’s Dip, a whopping 2,505 showed up and stayed in the water for five minutes, the amount of time required to break the previous world record. That day alone raised upwards of 500,000 euros. And the children’s cancer charity Featherstone had chosen was able to use the funds to build a house near a hospital in Dublin that families can live in when their child is undergoing treatment there.

“I never, in my wildest dreams, thought [all of this] was possible,” Featherstone says. “I was in a daze that whole day.”

Uncharacteristically for Ireland, the sun shone brightly that morning and afternoon. Dippers descended from not just parts of Ireland, but from as far away as Australia to join in.

It’s not a feat that organizers expect or will deliberately try to replicate (it was costly and takes a lot of work) — unless, of course, another group beats the world record, in which case they’ll redouble their efforts to reclaim the title! Otherwise, Featherstone says she’s happy to keep the Dips going for years to come, ideally with between 500 and 1,000 participants. That way, it won’t get overly crowded on the beach and in the car park, and the event can maintain some of that early-days intimate feeling of friends returning to see each other.

Barbra Hackett, a 53-year-old living in Kildare, Ireland, was first involved in the Dips as a photographer Featherstone brought on so that the women could set their phones and cameras aside and still have mementos of the day. In 2020, just before the Covid lockdown, Hackett lost her husband to cancer, and then two years ago, she was diagnosed with kidney cancer. (She’s in the midst of treatment.) These two experiences prompted her to start participating in the Dips herself.

“The women, the Dips … have been life-changing for me,” Hackett says. “I never knew, when I photographed my first Dip, that I’d go through my own cancer journey. But I have the support of all of these women, and that is just priceless.”

That first Dip, she was “scared witless,” particularly about the frigid water, she says. But she found solace in the others’ bravery and generosity, and she was especially moved by a five-time Dipper named Miriam Payne, a close friend ever since, who took her hand and helped her run into the sea.

“The girls just pull you along,” Hackett says. “They say, ‘You’ve got this and I’ve got you.’ And that, to me, is what the Dip is about.”

Payne is almost three years cancer-free after a bout forced her to undergo two surgeries that have left her with what amounts to only half a lung. To her, the Dips have been an evolution in feeling comfortable with her body and being able to find contentment in the experience, rather than worry. Initially, she says, she opted to skinny-dip as a one-time bucket-list item. It’s only been in the past few years that the feeling of self-consciousness has diminished enough that she’s not trying to hold in her belly all the time. She’s simply having fun and trying to bring others to that place of enjoyment, too. 

“There’s this feeling you get when you hit the water and everyone’s laughing and screaming,” Payne says. “It’s not about if you have cancer or have helped someone through cancer — we’re all the same. Everyone’s there to have a bit of a laugh, a mess. We’re all together, and I’m not afraid when I’m with these people. It just gets me.”

---

Dena Levitz is a writer, events producer and yoga teacher living in New York City. Her work — covering travel, food, tech, love and everything in between — has appeared in publications including The Washington Post, Smithsonian magazine, Eater, Bloomberg and Business Insider.

Jesse Sposato is Narratively’s executive editor. She also writes about social issues, feminism, health, friendship and culture for a variety of outlets.

Aidi Riera is an illustrator, surface pattern designer and mixed media artist from Barcelona, Spain. She loves to work with gouache, colored pencils and markers, as well as digitally, and she is inspired by nature and animals, especially cats.