Beach information, bathing-water quality, coastal conditions, environmental monitoring and practical updates for communities and visitors around Ireland.
Ireland continues to have overwhelmingly high bathing-water standards, with 98 per cent of officially designated sites meeting the required standard in the latest national…
Read articleDun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council
EPA alert data last synced 24 Aug 2026, 03:20.
Current restrictions and beach signage take priority over annual classifications and individual sample results. Conditions can change between samples.
Sandycove Beach is classified as achieving Good Water Quality in 2025 based on the assessment of bacteriological results for the period 2022 to 2025. Sandycove Beach achieved a Good Water Quality rating for the four consecutive years 2022 to 2025. Annual water quality ratings are generally calculated using monitoring results over a four-year period and are assessed against stringent bacterial limits to protect bather health.
| Date | Sample status | E. coli | Intestinal enterococci |
|---|---|---|---|
| 17 Aug 2026 | Excellent | 20 | 7 |
| 10 Aug 2026 | Excellent | 31 | 10 |
| 4 Aug 2026 | Excellent | 134 | 6 |
| 27 Jul 2026 | Excellent | 20 | 3 |
| 20 Jul 2026 | Excellent | <10 | <1 |
| 13 Jul 2026 | Excellent | 31 | 10 |
| 6 Jul 2026 | Excellent | <10 | <1 |
| 29 Jun 2026 | Excellent | 20 | 32 |
| 23 Jun 2026 | Good | 10 | 162 |
| 15 Jun 2026 | Excellent | 31 | 32 |
| 9 Jun 2026 | Excellent | 10 | 28 |
| 2 Jun 2026 | Excellent | 146 | 22 |
Sandycove beach is a tiny beach which offers shallow water to paddle and lovely views to admire. This seaside suburb is located around a pleasant harbour and has a famous Martello Tower where the writer James Joyce once stayed for a week as a guest of poet Oliver St. John Gogarty. It is also home to the traditional Irish bathing place, the Forty Foot, where brave bathers swim all year round.
Managed by Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council.
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