Ireland is notorious for rain, the bane of organisers of diving trips and summer holidays in our home waters, yet most divers who visit the country are drawn to return again and again.

Twenty or so years ago I was bitten by the Ireland diving bug. Few dive centres had been established, so we bought some charts, booked a ferry crossing, took club boats and mobile compressors and made it up as we went along.

We based ourselves near Baltimore, before any of the current dive centres were established, mainly because a couple of us had some knowledge of the area from a marine biology project in Lough Hyne. Besides, it was about as far south and west as we could realistically get.

We managed a few days' good diving before it started to rain, and rain, and rain. My tent was ripped to shreds and I moved into the van. Our camp site was flooded by huge waves coming across the beach and into the field. One of our divers woke in the middle of the night afloat on his airbed. The river burst its banks. We could have dived the high street in Skibbereen.

One unwashed individual came out with a rash of zits. We encouraged him to wash and improve his personal hygiene a bit. A visit to the local doctor revealed it to be chicken-pox.
Meanwhile the launderette did a wonderful job of drying our sleeping bags and the pub provided a hospitable refuge. Guinness was consumed in large quantities.

Then the rain stopped, the sun came out, and we were straight out to Fastnet rock. It was surprising after such bad weather; the sea was oily calm and underwater visibility was stunning. There were walls of soft corals and sponges, crawfish, lobsters and crabs everywhere - a testimony to the remote location and Irish law which prohibits divers from taking anything.

Even the chicken-pox victim got to dive, and mentioned that it eased the itching on his face and that his drysuit prevented him scratching anywhere else.

Despite the adversity, or perhaps because we had overcome it, the trip was a resounding success. Ireland became a semi-regular event in the club schedule. Every couple of years we organised another expedition to dive a little further northwards, slowly working our way up the west coast.

Initially these were still self-contained expeditions, then we got a little softer and some would say wiser. Instead of camping, we rented cottages. As dive centres became available, we left the mobile compressor behind and bought air-fills.

Having begun in County Cork, over a series of trips we worked our way as far north as the Connemara peninsula in County Galway. Diving was consistently first class, with marine life being variations on the same theme. There were dense walls of soft corals, sponges, anemones and hydroids, nudibranchs, creepy-crawlies and lots of fish.

Off Great Skellig, a dive I will always remember was on Washerwoman Rock, a breaking reef with a deep canyon through the middle, full of surging, tumbling water. Unfortunately the sea was too rough for me to repeat it when I was touring Ireland last year.

At Tearaght Island I dived down a wall and came up a spectacular unknown pinnacle, only realising what had happened when I ran out of rock before reaching the surface.

In County Galway, the angular stack Boughill beckoned as an obvious place to dive, presiding over a wall stuffed with anemones and hydroids, and thousands of nudibranchs munching away.

We were close to departing on another self-contained trip to dive a selection of locations in County Mayo and County Donegal when three divers dropped out. There were not enough of us to make the originally planned expedition viable, and an urgent alternative was required. We reduced our ferry tickets to a single car and sorted out some last-minute diving on Rathlin Island with Tommy Cecil, a great character who has since been unfortunately lost in a diving accident.

We were introduced to hand-fed congers on the wreck of the Templemore, the deep and complete wreck of the tanker Santa Maria, and the north wall of Rathlin, stretching over 100m straight up and down. As on every trip, we enjoyed some excellent diving and some equally good company.

Subsequent trips to Ireland have been less adventurous and less dependent on a large group being organised, as we have gone where the dive centres are and made greater use of their facilities. Expeditions have turned into diving holidays.
Diving in Ireland is now a thriving and established pastime. Local Irish divers make use of dive centres around most of the coastline. Divers visit from Britain and all over Europe. You can book a diving package almost as easily as you would book one to the Red Sea.

Last year I helped some friends plan a club expedition to the original format, with fully self-contained squalor and camping. Things had gone nearly full circle. I didn't join the trip but they had a great time and returned home with all the usual stories of finding and missing dive sites, tents shredded, famous quotes and trashed equipment. The sort of thing that just doesn't happen when you dive with an established local dive centre and stay in a B& B.

Diving in Ireland and life in general there is remarkably free of bureaucracy. Provided you don't take anything from the sea, living or metal, you won't have problems.

Wrecks older than 100 years come under blanket protection, but as long as you behave responsibly and stay away from the really old stuff, this is pretty much ignored. The only exceptions are some explicitly protected wrecks such as the Lusitania.

So whether you are planning a fully fledged expedition, a group holiday with a dive centre, or perhaps catching a few dives on a family holiday, the question I am always asked is: Where in Ireland offers the best diving?

I'll give an answer a politician being grilled by Jeremy Paxman would be proud of, except in my case the answer is genuine. I have enjoyed the diving and the company wherever I have been in Ireland. My motivation lies more in diving the bits of Ireland I haven't dived yet. Which reminds me, I never did get round to diving Donegal.

The wreck of the liberty ship Empire Tanna, at Strangford Lough, Co Down, makes a good dive whatever the weather


lunch ashore on Great Blasket Island, Dingle, Co Kerry


pinnacles off Tearaght Island, Dingle


feeding conger eels on the wreck of the Templemore at Ballycastle in Co Antrim

GETTING THERE: Ferries from Swansea to Cork, Pembroke or Fishguard to Rosslare, Holyhead or Liverpool to Dublin, Stranraer to Larne. Another option is to fly to Cork, Shannon, Dublin or Belfast and hire a car. Dive centres can usually arrange for discounted ferry tickets. DIVING: Too many to list individually. Check out the advertisements in this issue of Diver. If launching your own boat, most coastal towns have old fishing harbours and slips, though you might be constrained by the tide. ACCOMMODATION: Campsites, hostels, B&B and self-catering cottages. Many dive centres have their own accommodation or can arrange it. Casual camping is allowed on common ground, though it is always best to ask first. WHEN TO GO: Summer, though diving available year-round. WATER TEMPERATURE: Similar to UK west coast. MONEY: Euro and Credit cards DIVING SUITABLE FOR: A terrific range, from easy shore dives to deep wrecks. FOR NON DIVERS: Pubs with character and Irish hospitality, countryside, uncrowded beaches, golf, history and antiques. FURTHER INFORMATION: Irish Tourist Board, 00353 1602 4000, www.ireland.ie