Dingle, County Kerry
Photograph: JoachimKohler-HB · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
County Kerry · Munster

Dingle

An Daingean

'the fortress'

The story

The most westerly town in Ireland and a Gaeltacht port that traded wine with Spain in the sixteenth century — Spanish ships came to the harbour and Irish priests left from it in the penal years. A bottlenose dolphin called Fungie lived in the harbour from 1983 until he vanished in 2020.

Worth seeing nearby
  • Kilmalkedar · A 12th-century church with an 'alphabet stone', an ogham stone pierced with a hole for sealing oaths, and a sundial — 1,400 years of Dingle history in one field.
  • Great Blasket Island · An island of storytellers that produced three classic memoirs in Irish, evacuated in 1953 when the last young man died and no one could row for the doctor.
  • Gallarus Oratory · A dry-stone church shaped like an upturned boat, watertight after (probably) 1,200 years — not a single stone has moved.

All of these are pinned on the Hidden Ireland map.

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