Can I Swim?

All swimming spots › Tipperary, Ireland

Can I swim at Dromineer Beach?

Tipperary, Ireland · Lake

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Before you get in

Inland water is cold all year, and there are no lifeguards here.

If you get into trouble, float on your back until the cold shock passes. Full advice below.

In an emergency call 999, or 112 in the Republic of Ireland.

Water quality today

Can't say today
Checked 30 minutes ago.
Out of bathing season — EPA Ireland's routine sampling stopped on 15 September and starts again on 1 June, so nothing official stands behind

What this verdict covers

Independent site, not an official one. This verdict is about water quality. It does not tell you whether the water is safe to get into today.

How it has been rated

The annual grade, which is worked out from bacterial samples taken over several seasons.

Every sample, 2024 to 2026

23 samples, 2024 to 2026. The highest E. coli count in them was 384 per 100ml, on 21 July 2025; the standard for Excellent is 500 or below and for Good 1,000 or below.

One bar for each sample, oldest on the left. The taller the bar, the more E. coli that bottle held.

Good standard, 1,000
Excellent, 500

The scale is the same on every beach on this site, which is why a clean beach looks flat — the bars are measured against the standard rather than against that beach’s own worst day. Hover or tap a bar for that day’s figures. A single count over a line is not a failed beach. The classification is worked out as the 90th and 95th percentile of four years of samples, so one bad morning does not decide it — and one good morning does not either.

What these bacteria mean for you

Neither one is what makes people ill by itself. They are markers: they live in the gut, so finding them means sewage or animal waste has reached the water, and whatever else came with it is likely there too.

The usual way to catch something is swallowing the water, and the usual result is a stomach upset. Ear, eye, chest and skin infections are the other common ones. Putting your head under and swimming with an open cut both raise the odds.

The riskiest time is the day or two after heavy rain, when storm overflows discharge and rain washes off farmland — including at beaches rated Excellent for the rest of the season. That is the whole reason this page shows you rainfall and discharges alongside the grade.

Dromineer Beach was rated Good Quality for 2025, the second of the four grades in the Bathing Water Regulations. That grade comes from bacterial samples taken over several seasons, so it describes the beach's record rather than the water on any given day.

The local authority publishes bathing restrictions and sample results for this beach. No storm overflow data is published in the Republic at all, so sewage discharges cannot be checked here.

The rest of its file

What the regulator holds for this place. None of it describes the water today.

Water
Lake
Area
Tipperary, Ireland
Storm overflows
No data published in the Republic

Water temperature

There is no water temperature for this place, and no honest way to give one. Nobody publishes a live temperature for Britain and Ireland’s rivers and lakes: SEPA and Natural Resources Wales measure none at all, and the satellite products that cover lakes do not include this one and run weeks behind.

Air temperature is not a substitute. Inland water stays cold through the summer, and it is coldest relative to the air on the warm still days when most people get in. The RNLI says inland water like lakes, rivers, lochs and reservoirs can be colder than the sea, even in summer, and it defines cold water as anything below 15°C. Cold water can seriously affect your breathing and your ability to move. Treat this water as cold, get in slowly, and know how to float.

Where it is, and what discharges near it

Directions to this bathing water

Map loads as you scroll here

That is the published location for this bathing water, which is at the water rather than at a car park. Your maps app will take you to the nearest road it can reach.

The nearest mapped car park is about 40m away in a straight line. That is not a walking distance: OpenStreetMap knows where the car park is and nothing about the path, which may be longer, steeper or not there at all. It is tagged as free, as the mappers wrote it.

What is mapped at this beach

  • Toilets about 70m away — step-free
  • The Lake Café about 200m away

Straight-line distances from OpenStreetMap, not walking distances, and only what volunteers have mapped — something missing here may still be there.

Getting here without a car

  • Nearest bus stop Dromineer, about 300m away

Straight-line distances to where the stop or station is, from the national registers of them. That a stop exists is not a promise that a bus calls at it — timetables are somebody else’s data and this page does not read them, so check the operator before you rely on it.

Other swimming spots nearby

The closest bathing waters on the regulators’ lists, straight-line distance. Each has its own checks and its own verdict.

Check the official source

The regulator’s own page for this bathing water. If it disagrees with this one, believe theirs.

Dromineer Beach's official profile (PDF) at beaches.ie · See it on a map

This page is not official. It reads published data and presents it plainly; if a sign at the water says otherwise, believe the sign.

If you get into trouble

This is the RNLI’s advice, not ours.

Float. Tilt your head back with your ears in the water. Relax and let your breathing settle. Move your hands and legs gently to stay level. Your legs may sink, and that is fine, everyone floats differently. The first shock of cold water passes in less than a minute, so do not try to swim straight away. Once it has passed, call for help or swim to safety.

In an emergency call 999 and ask for the fire service, or for the Coastguard at a tidal river. In the Republic of Ireland call 112 or 999.

Inland water has its own hazards and none of them are visible from the bank. The bottom shelves away without warning, weeds and submerged branches catch legs, and a river runs faster and colder after rain than it looks from the side. There are no lifeguards and no flags at almost every place on this list.

Never jump in. You cannot see what is under the surface, and the cold on entry is what causes the gasp, not the depth.

This advice is the RNLI’s. Their Float to Live pages are worth two minutes of anyone’s time.

Use this page elsewhere

One sheet of A4 with a QR code to this page, for a clubhouse, a campsite reception, a surf school or a harbour office. The address is printed underneath in words, so it still works for anybody who would rather not scan a code.

Print a sign for Dromineer Beach

Or put today’s verdict on your own site.

Put this swimming spot on your own site

A small card showing today’s verdict for Dromineer Beach, updating itself. Paste this where you want it to appear. It loads nothing of yours and sets no cookies, and it costs your visitors about ten kilobytes, most of it the readings themselves.

Click the box to select it all. There is also a feed for this swimming spot, if you would rather be told than have to look.