Whenever Dermot Bannon is feeling stressed or overwhelmed, he heads to the beach for a swim. For as long as he can remember, the sea has been a sanctuary for the architect and TV presenter, and swimming his sport of choice.
‘There is something about me and cold water,’ he muses. ‘I love it and always have, ever since I was a child growing up in Malahide. I was never a natural sports person, but I could swim. When people started going to the gym, I’d head to the pool.
‘Now I love sea swimming. For me, it’s a reset. If I’m ever feeling stressed or worried about stuff, I go to the sea and I throw myself in. It rights everything for me, and I come out of it in a much better place.’
The 52-year-old host of RTÉ One home renovation series Room To Improve is part of a WhatsApp group of friends who regularly meet at Malahide for a dip, irrespective of weather.
The social aspect of these sea swims is important too — spending time with friends is something he prioritises these days. In the coldest months of the year, when he’s feeling slightly less enthusiastic about throwing himself in the sea, his pals are there to push him on — or in.
If you were to ask Dermot to choose between an outing to the pub for a pint or a sea swim followed by a flask of hot coffee and a chat on the beach, it would be a hard call. ‘They’re nearly equal at this stage,’ he laughs. ‘Nearly.’
Dermot, who lives in Drumcondra with his family, has been prioritising these times with friends of late, following a health scare that he says was a 'wake-up call.'
Last year, while on a family holiday to Portugal, Dermot suffered a pulmonary embolism when a clot worked its way from his leg into his lungs.
Thinking he’d broken a rib, he went to hospital and was told he had a lung infection. Back home in Dublin, the pain got worse, and when he went to A&E, a CT scan showed up a clot in both lungs.
The experience was a ‘wake-up call’, admits Dermot, who is now in the best shape of his life. He walks 10,000 steps a day, hits the gym three times a week and of course, goes for regular sea swims.
He has to take blood thinners, which means no impact sports like skiing, although he did have a recent fright on a zipline.
‘I’m 52 and probably shouldn’t have been zooming along on a zipline, but I crashed into a tree and got a bruise like I’ve never had before,’ he says.
‘My blood doesn’t clot like it used to and it was a nasty crash into the tree. My leg went completely black, and it scared the life out of me. But other than a heavy bruise on my leg, I feel great.’
His perspective on the work/life balance has shifted too.
‘I’ve always been a bit of a workaholic — work now and enjoy life later was my mantra. But I live in the present now. I don’t really care as much about the future. I grab on to what I have right in front of me, which has been an eye-opener.
‘You think you’ve got plenty of time to go to the pubs and restaurants, then something like this happens and you realise that maybe there isn’t enough time. Maybe you should be doing those things now. Work can always wait.’
Dermot's new approach to and his love of the sea makes him a good fit as ambassador at the Volvo Dún Laoghaire Regatta, which runs from Thursday, July 10, to Sunday, July 13.
Co-hosted by the four waterfront yacht clubs in Dún Laoghaire, the four-day event will welcome up to 350 boats across 36 competing classes, ranging from small dinghies up to ocean-going 50-footers.
With around 2,000 crew members travelling from all over the world to participate, it’s the largest sailing event to be held in Ireland. New features include The Bay Race, a spectator-friendly opening event and an introductory class to welcome first-time racers.
The regatta will coincide with Coastival, a week-long festival celebrating Dún Laoghaire’s maritime heritage, which is something Dermot is looking forward to seeing as he loves the design of boats, crediting architect Ross Cahill-O’Brien with giving him an appreciation for.
It’s not surprising that a man who runs his own firm with his wife Louise and presents a long-running show on house renovations sees everything from an architectural perspective.
This eye for design was cultivated when, as a child, he moved with his family to Cairo in Egypt, where his horticulturist father had been offered a job.
Being thrust into such a massive and densely populated city was an onslaught on the young Dermot’s senses.
Prior to the relocation, he’d been used to a quiet life in a small fishing village. Cairo was daunting and exciting, and Dermot became fascinated with buildings and how people used them.
‘I love spaces between buildings. I love streets, community plazas, squares. I love going to Italy and sitting on the steps of churches and watching people and how they use these spaces,’ says Dermot.
‘I remember the first day I arrived in Cairo, the metro was running through the city centre, but everybody was hanging off it and I was worried about the live overhead cables and the fear that someone was going to get electrocuted. I never got on the metro once the whole time I was there.’
When Cairo became too hot to tolerate during the summer months, the Bannon family returned to Dublin but headed back to Egypt once the temperatures dipped.
‘We were constantly on the move, and I suppose I became obsessed with watching how people interacted with buildings,’ he says. ‘That’s where my love of design came from, that designing around people. When I started off in practice, I wanted to work in schools, hospitals, communal spaces.
'The spaces in-between — the atriums, the gallery spaces — were more important than the rooms themselves.’
Room To Improve, which has been running since 2007, allows Dermot to indulge his interest in how people interact with buildings, but also to explore the psychology behind the homeowners.
He’s intrigued by their personalities, eccentricities and requirements, and loves the fact they are so candid with their opinions and stories.
What makes Room To Improve stand out from other reality-style TV shows, he believes, is the fact that there is a huge amount of jeopardy that comes from spending one’s life savings on a renovation.
The show doesn’t gloss over disagreements on site or, to use a design metaphor, paint over the cracks, but aims to present an honest account of managing a building project.
‘The reason I love doing this show is because I get to meet a whole new batch of people every year, with a new batch of problems and solutions,’ he says.
‘I spend a year with these people. We have our ups, we have our downs, but out of all of them there’s only a handful that I don’t keep in contact with regularly. I’d class most of them as good friends.’
Interview by Maureen Coleman
The 10th Volvo Dún Laoghaire Regatta takes place from Thursday, July 10, to Sunday, July 13. For more information visit dlregatta.org
