She says she didn’t, but Aisling Haughey must have known. Ten thousand kilometres separated her from her father’s birthplace of Dublin, but familial bonds have a unique ability to stretch, and the Haugheys have always been close. Trinity’s Intervarsity-winning swimmer will at least admit that much. Every summer, her family would make the journey from Hong Kong, where Haughey grew up, to visit relations in Ireland. Was she fully aware that her great-uncle was one of the country’s most famous politicians? Perhaps not fully – she insists with a rueful smile that, no, Charlie Haughey wasn’t present on the sideline of the swimming pool, cheering her along.
Nevertheless, what is clear is that Aisling Haughey has relations in high places, connected, by blood and – admittedly more tenuously – by marriage, to the Haughey and Lemass political dynasties.
You would never know it.
Throughout our interview, perched inside Costa’s giant front door, with a perfect view of a rainy Nassau St, Haughey is so understated as to be barely there. With a family background so steeped in politics, I must beg forgiveness for half expecting some sort of conscious self-representation, some attempt at selling herself. Not a bit of it. Haughey seems, in truth, slightly bemused by the whole thing. Smiling politely throughout, she answers questions with refreshing simplicity, but does not deign to take the bait and offer any big reveals. She is modest to a fault, and manages to make hard-earned achievements – she is ranked “second or third in Ireland” – sound everyday, the unspectacular pursuit of this most insistently regular of students.
She insists with a rueful smile that, no, Charlie Haughey wasn’t present on the sideline of the swimming pool
Growing up in Hong Kong, to an Irish father and a Chinese mother, Haughey says swimming was ever-present, for herself and for her younger sister Siobhan. “I think, when we were babies”, she begins, “my dad was kind of just thinking it’s kind of a life skill. [In his head] everyone should know how to swim. So he just brought me and my sister into the pool, and we started taking a few lessons, and then got a bit better. So we just continued on”.
It’s an almost comically bashful answer. Haughey is now in her final year of physiotherapy, and, having entered last weekend’s Intervarsities for Dublin University Swimming Club (DUSC) “because it’s [my] last year and I thought I might as well just do it”, swept to victory in the 100-metre and 200-metre breaststroke. Siobhan is studying in Michigan, having swum for Hong Kong in the 2016 Olympics. They’re an impressive pair.
We’re here, though, to discuss Aisling Haughey. I sense the story of her enrolment at Trinity might be a straightforward one, and I am proven right. “Two of my cousins are in college [in Ireland]”, she offers. “One’s in Trinity and one’s in UCD, and so they gave me a tour around. And then I just really liked Trinity so I applied, and then I got in. Yeah.”
She sits forward, attentive, with the same uncertain smile. “It’s manageable”, she maintains, of the perennial struggle for balance in the life of almost any student with a sideline as an elite athlete. “This year’s not too bad. Last year, it was a bit harder with placement, because sometimes placement would clash with my training time. One of my placements was in Tullamore – I couldn’t train for five weeks! So yeah, you just have to like, plan it.” She is nearing the end, now, of her time in Trinity, and says her emotions are bittersweet.
I wonder if there were many cultural gaps to navigate between Ireland and Hong Kong, sporting or academic. We start with swimming, and Haughey has to think about it. “I think it’s quite similar”, she offers eventually. “Just looking at the club I’m training with, it’s quite similar.”
And academically? “Well, I’m not quite sure about the university culture, but then, for secondary, I’ll say, it’s more academic in Hong Kong. More … yeah. I just remember, a few of my cousins are in secondary school [in Ireland] and some of them were talking about how they study and stuff, but in Hong Kong it’s basically, once you’re in fourth year – it’s six years in secondary – and once you’re in fourth year, you do nothing. You just study. But then, I feel like here it’s a bit more, relaxed?” She grins at my vigorous nod, far more relaxed in a good-natured discussion about the ramshackle attitude to study in Ireland than in an analysis of her own success.
Nevertheless, it’s what we’re here for, and it’s where we must return. Haughey’s intervarsity victory was a sweet, but brief, foray into collegiate swimming. For the most part, she has stuck to her own swimming regimen at Aer Lingus swimming club, competing in at provincial and national level. It’s a punishing schedule – the morning after our interview, for example, she will rise at dawn to be in the pool for 5am – but you sense it’s not one she’d change. How, I wonder, does one maintain that level of dedication?
“Well, you really have to enjoy it”, she chuckles. “Yeah, liking what you do helps a lot. And like the social aspect, like training with your team and getting along with your teammates and the coach, that helps as well. And also, I guess, I’m kind of competitive” – a small, self-effacing smile – “so, I know I can do better, so I just want to push myself, just to see where can I go”.
You sense she’ll excel in life, but do so quietly, determinedly, without fuss
She says her interest in physiotherapy has its origins in an injury she sustained “a long time ago”, from going to the physio and “liking [the look of] what he was doing. I always wanted to be in healthcare and helping people. I just hate desk work. I don’t think I’d be able to sit at a desk for the whole day”.
It is useful, she admits after another pause, to her swimming, to know how the human body works, “to know what muscle groups to target. I guess”.
In the immediate future, Haughey is preparing for the Irish Open Championships, where she hopes to set a new personal best.
And then? “And then after that it will be a bit tricky. Because I’m graduating, and graduating [will involve] looking for jobs. And I’m not quite sure how that’s going to go. But then, I would want to continue swimming.”
The world, then, is an oyster for Aisling Haughey, albeit not one she seems in any particular rush to prise open. It would be an easy mistake to peg her as one of life’s floaters, to miss the incredible hard work that has pushed her to the heights of Irish swimming – the early mornings, the endless lengths, the hours in the gym. But then that is the point with Haughey. You sense she’ll excel in life, but do so quietly, determinedly, without fuss. Politics though? Perhaps not.
