WOMEN GATHERED IN the glorious Wicklow sunshine yesterday afternoon and managed to raise hundreds of thousands of euro for charity and break a world record in the process.

The “strip and dip” was a fundraiser for Aoibheann’s Pink Tie – a children’s cancer charity – and managed to attract 2,505 women to break the previous record for the world’s largest skinny dip of 786 people, set in Perth in Australia in 2015.

This was the sixth year that the strip and dip was held – with just 80 women attending the first edition.

The idea came from Deirdre Featherstone, who had a mastectomy as part of treatment for breast cancer, who decided to raise money for childhood cancer.

The organisers said in a statement: “There are a lot of women undertaking this who have been through cancer and of course lots of people who have been affected by it.

Dee 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.  It has been a magical day for all involved and a closed format… So only ladies were allowed.

At the time of writing, the fundraiser had attracted over €200,000 in charitable donations.