Markievicz Leisure Centre

Nageuse confirmé, je me permet de donner mon avis. (Attention nage à gauche !)

Points positifs : - Facile d'accès pour toutes personnes (rampe, relief au sol pour les mal-voyants) - Peu de personnes entre 15h30 et 17h le mercredi - Eau chaude dans les douches - Grande majorité pour ne pas dire tout le monde porte un bonnet de bain - accès au sauna avec une entrée piscine - proche de différentes lignes de bus et de Connelly Station

Points négatifs : - Piscine très peu profonde : 2/3 à 80cm et 1/3 à 1,80m - Pas de zone de déchaussage (prévoir des tongues) - Pas de douche obligatoire (propreté piscine...?) - Prévoir un cadena pour le casier

I only tried the swimming pool and I have to say the word DISGUSTING. It might be the cheapest gym and swimming pool in town buts thats no reason to be the dirtiest. The locker room, the changing room were just so crumby I just cant believe it.
I can say no judgement about the pool itself (the water looks clean thank god) or the gym cuz havent tried but I can tell you one thing, I better pay twice as much the price and dont risk anything.

One of the best gyms in town… I’ve heard ;)… I went into that gym because of the great swimming pool. Eight lanes which are sometimes packed with people but if you go there early or late it’s fine. The price is really ok if you take the monthly, quarterly or yearly membership. Yearly is 280 €. They could improve the cleaning a bit but it is still ok and the staff is very friendly!

Dublin City Council, really! I arrived expecting to find a dank dirty marsh dressed as a commemoration to Dublin’s namesake. Instead I found a modern, clean and functional swimming pool.
The Markievicz Centre has both pool and gym facilities, I have only used the pool so far. My current gym does not have a pool, so I wanted somewhere to swim lengths once or twice a week. With no membership required and a € 6.20 entrance fee the Markievicz pool fits the bill perfectly.
The changing areas are very clean and there are plenty of lockers. The 25m pool is also very clean, but I did find it quite shallow with each end measuring 1.0m and 1.8m respectively. I went on a Wednesday evening and all six lanes were dedicated to lengths (between 17:00 and 19:00). I did not find the pool too crowded either, there was never more than three of us sharing a lane.
It is also only an extra 55 cent for both pool and gym entry on a pay as you go basis! You can opt for 1, 3, 6 or 12 month membership too, lots of options available. The aerobics area faces onto the side of the pool, so pull up a bike and have a gawk at the swimmers, and the weights area overlooks one end of the pool.
Oh, don’t forget to drop into the sauna after all that hard work ;-) (PS one of the guys in the sauna said this gym was «muck» compared to the councils gym in Ballymun, I want to check out Ballymun’s gym now).

From previous reviews this gym is well overrated. To be honest this gym is probably the worst I’ve experienced. Yes it is cheap, but it’s small and overcrowded. Maybe during the daytime it is less busy but after 5 when most working people hit the gym it is packed! Long waiting times for machines, overused dirty shower/​changing rooms and not even enough space to do simple sit ups on the floor.
Have a trial before you commit!

The Markievicz has gone through a bit of an upgrade of late. The cardio room and weights room have swapped and this works so much better. The cardio room works better now and the weights room is more spacious and there’s been newer equipment added for the extra space. I’m still a big fan of the place.
Also worth noting, if you’re a user of DublinBikes: there’s a bike station just outside the front of the gym which it makes it more accessible!

Máire B. once said to me ‘Not being able to swim is all in your mind’. She proceeded to work on my mind and body to no avail for several months trying to teach me how to swim but as is often the case with me, I gave up while on the very verge of victory.
I’m especially grateful to her now though. I just went to my first swimming lesson run by the Marcievicz Pool and the confidence and basic skills she taught me are being put through their paces by the swimming instructor. I really enjoyed the lesson. Paul starts with the basics and while never getting into the pool himself, explains clearly and simply the small steps we need to learn and build on in order to learn how to swim. Classes cost sixty five of your Earth euro for eight classes, which is incredible value. Five people showed up tonight and Paul made sure we were all progressing at a pace suitable to each individual one of us, while still expecting us to actually have a bit of nerve and try the scary new move. I started off slow but a lot of what Máire taught me came back quickly with Paul’s encouragement. He’s very detached and objective but encouraging when you do make progress. He’s also able to criticise in a gentle and constructive way. An ideal teacher, really.
The pool itself is gorgeous; really clean and nicely warm compared to other pools I’ve visited. The staff are very professional and the other swimmers are pretty considerate in my experience. There are communal changing rooms and showers (separate sexes of course) and bring your own lock for the lockers. A really nice spot.

When my back says help ! and my body wants to feel alive, if I’m in town, that’s where I ll go swimming. Very handy location, near loads of bus stops, behind Tara station and around the corner from a dublin bikes station.
You just come whenever you like, pay your 6e or something and there you go. It’s clean, I like the fact that I’ve never seen any kids in there, or people just floating around, the pool is a real 25m and often with lanes so that you really can concentrate on the swimming.
The down sides are that at peak times it’s full of really serious swimmers that create giant waves (yeah ok I exagerate.) and splashes and I feel under pressure everytime it’s getting busy. The other downside is the sauna, the only fancy facility with the swimming pool, it’s just not very hot and often crowded but all the better, I stay longer in the pool.
For the ladies, a note to say there are 3 changing cabins and a large changing room, showers are open, and you can plug your hairdryer or use the coin hairdryers.

I just moved in down the street from this gym and I love it. I have been almost every day due to their classes and the fact that they have a pool.
If you don’t like classes they also have a lot of machines (treadmills, elliptical, StairMasters, rowing machines, bikes) and a weight room.
I had never been to a class at a gym before and so far I have been to a ‘Pump and Tone’ class and ‘Aerobics’ class and I loved them both! The leaders really get you going and motivated!
If this gym is local to you (you can run to it as a warm up like I do) I HIGHLY suggest joining!

ugh… snow… blitz is stoping me from swimming!!! :/

It’s a great place for a leisurely swim (25m). If you are looking for the absolute local experience go on a Sunday morning when all the men from Dublin 1 are meeting to hang out in the sauna and do a few lazy lanes.
In the changing room you will overhear parts of phone conversations such as «So, ya lookin’ for money then?» … «For people to put money IN?» … Otherwise conversations are about Gaelic sports or the great movies with Marlon Brando. An elderly gentleman with handwritten blue IRA tattoos all over his arm used my towel. He politely apologized when he realized it wasn’t his own flannel scratching his butt cheeks. I wanted to wash it anyway and I wouldn’t have said much even if he would have ate the towel.
You get all this, a proper workout, sauna and shower for 6 €. It’s fair and in a crisis like that we can be happy if the city won’t close it. I missed a cold gush after the sauna; there were only hot showers. And a tip for saving the city’s money: Make the two showers at the pool’s entrance turn off automatically. They were steaming the whole time while I was there. Must make a huge energy bill.

I first went to this gym 8 years ago and only returned to it yesterday. (yeah, I know but I’ve been busy!) I have to say that they have greatly improved their services.
The pool is by far the best feature of the place because unlike other swimming holes, the people who use the Markievicz are serious about the sport. None of that silly splashing or doggy paddling. The swimmers in the lane are actually there to work out which is a refreshing change to other places.
Now, for my criticisms: I’m not a big fan of the fact that the aerobic room wasn’t air-​conditioned and therefore reeked of man sweat. I also found it strange that there were no ab machines in the weight room. I enquired at the reception and was told that someone had stolen this machine so they never replaced it. (I can’t even imagine how they would have gotten away with this… But that’s Dublin for you!)
Another thing that struck me as weird was where the lockers were placed: in between the men and women’s changing room. This means that after you take your shower, you have to go out in your towel to retrieve your stuff. I waltzed into the communal room only to see that some young man was staring at me from the sauna window. I sorta felt like an animal at the zoo.
But hey, all this for only 6 euro 50. I’ll definitely go back but this time I’ll make sure that no one robs my 1 euro from the locker.

The Markievicz Centre is in the city centre and it’s open to the public. I love the fact that you don’t have to join the gym as such, you can just pay as you go or get a monthly membership. They also give student discount, which is always a big plus. The facilities are clean and the pool is probably one of the best and cleanest ones I’ve come across in Dublin. Also, as Ciara said, the use of the sauna is included in the swimming pool ticket.
They do offer fitness classes as well, on the same pay-​as-​you-​go basis along with the use of the gym.

The Markievicz is the only swimming pool in the city centre open to the public. Its a 25 metre pool with 6 lanes for swimming lengths and there’s a sauna to relax and detoxify after your exercise which is free with admission to the pool.
The gym is fairly well equipped with treadmills, bikes, weight machines and free weights. The leisure centre also offers yoga, aerobics, spinning and other fitness classes.
Admission is € 6 for the pool or gym, € 7.50 for both.
The centre won the ILAM White Flag Award, which is granted for excellent leisure facilities, in 2008