Skinny dip record broken on Wicklow beach

Lucia Sinigagliesi, the Guinness World Records official that adjudicated the naked swim, said that 2,505 women spent five minutes in the chilling sea to set the new world record.

Thousands of Irish women have broken the Guinness World Record for the largest skinny dip, after they stripped off in the sun in county Wicklow on Saturday.

Participants arrive on the beach.

The charity was set up in 2010 after Irishman Jimmy Norman's 8-year-old daughter Aoibheann died from cancer, prompting the men at her funeral to wear pink ties because that was the girl's favorite color.

"Oh my god it was fantastic". "It was incredible. I have never been naked in front of anybody before, except my husband, and it was brilliant and bracing", she said.

"Oh my god it was unbelievable", said Strip and Dip participant Deirdre Betson from Dunboyne.

It also doubles as a fundraiser for children's cancer charity, Aoibheann's Pink Tie.

On Saturday, the sea temperature off Magheramore beach, where the Irish swim was held, was a bracing 12C, despite a recent spell of warm weather.

"We are all different shapes and sizes and ages and it was just super", she added.

On the event's page, Deirdre said: "With our laughter, scars, dodgy boobs or in a lot of cases only one or none... we would like to send a message that there is life after cancer and also raising awareness of how important it is for ladies to get checked".

"The idea came because I was sick myself around five years ago and I just wanted to do something for charity, and I just wanted to do something that would be a good laugh", she said.