Dublin to Belfast Pump Push

Hello my name is Declan, I am a Fire Fighter with the Dublin Fire Brigade and I am co-ordinating a charity pump-push from Dublin to Belfast.

So what exactly is a pump-push? There’s quite a long history of pump pushing in the fire services across the world; the portable fire pumps on wheels were actually the very first fire engines. Local volunteers used to race to the scene of the fire pushing a cart with some basic equipment to extinguish it. The fire service with all its passed down customs and competitiveness refused to let this tradition die, and in the early 1970s, brigades across the world began racing each other not to extinguish fire but for World Record glory and pride in their organisation!

The pump we are running with is the very same pump that Dublin Fire Brigade used in 1983 during their world record. It was built by engineer students from Cathal Brugha Technical College as a course project. In January of this year, the pump was found abandoned at the rear of our training centre with weeds and grass growing up through it. It was in a very bad state and had to be completely restored. It was re-welded and taken to our vehicle maintenance where they ‘Pimped our Pump’! It has been used in training sessions since mid-May after we revealed it to our pump pushers in Phoenix Park after a Dublin Fire Brigade Family Day 5km run.

Our racing team currently has a team of 48 runners from the Dublin Fire Service who will be pushing the fire pump from Dublin to Belfast on 31 July. We’ve split the members into eight teams of six and the first team will set off on their first leg from Swords at 11pm. The teams will switch throughout the night on their run up to Newry; their route will take them through Balbriggan, Gormanstown, Julianstown, Drogheda, Dunleer, Castlebellingham, Dundalk to Newry.

Fire Fighters from the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service will join up with the Dublin Fire team at Newry Fire Station and will then set off at 8.30am to head to Belfast via Scarva, Banbridge, Moira, Lisburn to the King’s Hall for the Opening Ceremony. The journey is 160km, so if we keep at an average running/pushing speed of 6mph it will take us 16 hours, assuming we have no issues on the way.

Our training started in March to get the non-runners moving and build up to a 5km family run. The serious training started when the pump was restored; currently we have three training sessions a week mixing pump pushing, longer runs and the dreaded bootcamp sessions with Greg Dunne from Dunboyne Fitclub. Some of our energetic team are competing in the Games and are taking part in the stair climb, cycling, athletics and dragon boat racing – so they all the pump-push training is helping them get in fighting form for these events!

We are raising money for a total of six charities; three from the Republic of Ireland - Irish Motor Neuron Disease Association, Suicide or Survive and CanTeen Ireland (donations can be made online)  and three from Northern Ireland - SOS NI Bus, Special Education Needs Advice Centre and Northern Ireland Cancer Fund for Children (there will be a bucket collection for these charities on the route up from Newry).

I’d like to give a big thanks to Aidan Magennis and Rod O'Hare of the Northern Ireland Fire Service for supporting us and for their AMAZING assistance to date; we look forward to meeting them at the border!

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