With a former Olympian at its helm and the opportunities that will be offered by the new 50metre pool being built on-campus, it makes the Club one of the most exciting prospects for UCD sport.

In December 2010, the UCD Swimming and Waterpolo Club recorded one of its greatest successes to date when the Club competed in the annual Swimming and Lifesaving Intervarsity Championships.  

The event, hosted by DCU in Donaghmede Leisure Centre, saw a tremendous success for the 21 member strong UCD swim team, and in particular the women’s team, which won the overall best team award with 62 points, beating Trinity College (45 points) and NUI Maynooth (34 points) into second and third place.  The UCD men’s team also enjoyed success, finishing second in their category to Maynooth. In the end only 6 points separated Maynooth (117) and UCD (111) with the former’s 35 strong swim team going home overall winners.

The medal haul by UCD was nevertheless impressive and demonstrated how far the club has come in recent years. Reaching 18 out of 29 finals, UCD won a remarkable 25 medals (13 Gold, 6 Silver and 6 Bronze). UCD Swim Coach and former Irish Olympic Swimmer (Atlanta 1996) Earl McCarthy, commented that the competition “was one of the most competitive in many years. Overall it was a fantastic performance from UCD Swimming. Our women’s team dominated, winning overall best team award and UCD men’s team fought a tough battle gaining second place behind Maynooth. NUIM have been running a well established scholarship team for many years now so it looks like Varsities swimming is going to have a challenging yet successful future”.

The competitive nature of the event was also not lost on NUI Maynooth’s head coach Martin ‘Spitz’ McGann either, who noted that “this year’s Championships have been of the highest standard, with finals harder to make than the Irish Short Course Championships”.  Coach McCarthy along with ‘Spitz’, and NUI Galway Coach, Pearse McGuigan have started the first collegiate league tournament in Ireland – the series of tri-meets (the first of which was won by UCD) is the first step towards an All-Ireland collegiate swimming league. The Mark McGann Memorial Trophy (Spitz’s Brother) was picked up by UCD after an impressive score of 208points over NUIM (174 points) and NUIG (123points). The next tri-meet will take place next semester where UCD will aim to defend the title.

A new branch of the club, the UCD Swim Team continues to move from strength to strength. The announcement that Swim Team has just begun competing in provincial and national swimming events bodes well for the future of the Club. UCD sent four swimmers (Gary Collinge, Sarah Caulfield, Niall McCauley, Cormac McGarry) to the Leinster Long Course Championships in March of this year and between the four swimmers UCD clocked up 5 Semi Finals, 2 B-Finals, and 1 Final. Coach McCarthy commented that the team’s performance at these championships  proves that ‘UCD Swimming is growing successfully and constantly and this weekend's performance show the great potential of UCD students and reflects so positively on the university as a whole’

The next step for the nine member strong Swim Team is the Irish National Long Course Championships taking place in the National Acquatic Centre at the end of April. 

‘ Niall McCauley (Male Captain) with the Mark McGann Memorial Cup; Coach Earl McCarthy; Brian Mullins (UCD Director if Sport), and Claire O’Donovan (Female Captain) with the Intervarsities Ladies Shield’