We've been exploring the West Coast of Ireland and now we’re heading for Dingle which some
people would say is the finest destination in the country.
Dingle is a lush green peninsula extending out into the Atlantic Ocean.
Entering the Dingle Peninsula and passing through villages of Blennerville, Camp and
Annascaul.
We stop by the roadside for a lovely view looking down towards the coast and across
the green fields.
Next stop, Dingle, our home base for the next couple days.
The town is one of Ireland's best with excellent hotels, of course many pubs, and in recent
years, Dingle has become one of the gourmet capitals of the country with many fine restaurants.
We will be taking you inside a couple of them.
The drive in gave us a nice overview and will be taking you on several walks through town.
Arriving at our Hotel Benners, it’s on the main street of Dingle, a very convenient location.
Most of the rooms are in the back away from the street making very quiet relaxing spot
to stay.
We will show you a little more of the hotel later in the program, but first we’re eager
to get out and take a walk around.
We just stepped right outside the front door of the hotel and we are on Main Street, Dingle.
It's got a lot of pubs, restaurants, a few art galleries and shops, and yet it still
retains a local feeling, because it's a couple blocks away from the touristic center.
Dingle is rather small, as we will show you on the map.
It's just got three principal streets, Main, Green and Strand, with the center of action
clustered in a few small blocks by the waterfront.
You can see the town center is small enough that you don't need to worry about looking
at a map or reading a guidebook to find out where to go.
It's all right there in front of you, one place after another, the shops, pubs and restaurants
making it easy to see all of the center in a couple of hours.
Of course you’ll want to spend time eating and drinking, and shopping.
Because Dingle is out on this peninsula, a little bit hard to get to, and yet it's one
of the nicest places in Ireland.
It's got the urban charm of a town.
Most visitors find the real attraction is the surrounding areas with the beautiful countryside
and the historic sites.
With a few minute’s drive, you are at the edge of town and beyond that, you're in the
countryside almost immediately.
So we hop in our van and do a tour of the peninsula.
It's not unusual to run into some rain when you're out here in the far tip of Europe,
in the Atlantic Ocean.
And we had some rain this morning, but it cleared up a little bit during the day.
Dingle is a peninsula sticking into the sea at the western edge of Europe, set amid wild
green scenery surrounded by the ocean.
One of the main historic sites you'll see is Dunbeg Fort.
It's quite typical of the Celtic fortresses of the Iron Age in Ireland.
It's built right up against the edge of a cliff, so it's easy to defend itself with
the big walls on one side and the sea cliff on the other.
And what was a purpose, what was it for?
Well, this was a nearly settlement.
It is very early, 500 BC.
This is what they built.
They are under attack, they are defending and attacking.
Probably house up to maybe 20 people, you know, 4 or 5 families with one head guy.
Uh-huh.
And when they come under attack, all in here, they would bring animals in here, everything.
And, there would have been timber structures in here.
And under attack that would bring animals in here, keep everything safe because when
they raid, they carry everything..
They are kept flat enough for walking.
It’s called dry stonewalling.
That’s what it is, and it’s still carried out today.
People can build walls that will last another couple of hundred years.
Curious stone structures, the beehive huts.
These stone domes were first built about 3,000 years ago, it's believed, and they were probably
the homes of ordinary people, of the farmers who lived in the area, with several generations
living together under one roof.
Okay, we’ve got a series of, one, two, three beehive huts, early settlements.
The stone domes are built up and what's called the corbel style in which each layer of stones
as you go higher is grouped more towards the center of the structure until finally meeting
at the top, forming a very solid stone dome, even without the use of mortar, all held together
by gravity and friction.
There called beehive huts because of the shape, not because there were any bees inside.
These were for people.
It's believed this site was occupied until about 1,200 A.D., by which time it had evolved
into a farmstead for an extended family with the habitation sites, and with the corrals
and room for livestock, farm buildings and storage places.
The style of prehistoric stone-dome dwelling is not unique to Ireland.
It's found in the South of Italy and other places throughout Europe dating back to the
Iron Age, thousands of years ago.
It's estimated there are the remains of about 400 beehive huts scattered throughout the
Dingle Peninsula.
This seems to be the most intact and accessible combination of huts, right on the side of
the road, so it's great place to stop and learn about them.
One of the legends says that they were the huts of the monks.
There were certainly a lot of monks and early Irish Catholics living in the area, but there
is no definite proof that these were occupied by monks.
They were built to about 1000 BC, well before the Christian era, before the time
of monks.
We’re lucky today that some of Ireland's prehistory is still quite visible, with stone
structures that have survived for thousands of years.
It's believed that people have been living on the Dingle Peninsula for at least 6,000
years, living a settled life as farmers and fishermen in a Neolithic culture.
Archaeologists have counted nearly 5000 stone structures and ruins and remains on the Dingle
Peninsula.
It is the highest density of Irish prehistoric structures in the entire country.
The other most amazing of the ancient structures on Dingle Peninsula is the Gallarus Oratory.
It's an ancient stone church made with no mortar at all.
The stones are just piled one on top of the other for a very snug fit.
It's one of the oldest and most famous churches in the whole of Ireland and yet mysterious.
Nobody knows quite exactly how old it is.
Estimates bring it back to the 9th-century, 10th-century, not quite sure.
The church is in almost perfect condition showing how incredibly-well it was constructed
in the first place.
The building technique again was the corbelling system where one row of stones overlaps the
row underneath, with the building getting more narrow as it grows higher.
The structure is waterproof and airtight, forming a sheltered space for intimate religious
activities.
Presumably they came on Sundays and Holy days to conduct mass.
It was obviously for a small congregation.
There wouldn't have been a very large population back in those days because of famine and disease,
plague, infant mortality, warfare, short lifespan.
Living conditions were difficult, and yet the masons were able to come together and
build this structure of everlasting beauty.
These people had a subsistence economy that just provided the basic needs from what they
could grow and catch and fish.
A small amount of trading would've taken place, but largely they were self-sufficient back
in the Middle Ages when Gallarus was built, fully utilizing all their resources.
They used the mountains for gathering and the more-rough patches for animal grazing
and the arable land for farming, for their main staples of oats, barley and wheat.
If you drove from Dingle out around the peninsula and back again, it's just about 25 miles so
you can easily do it in half a day while stopping to look at the sites, and then head back into
town.
Dingle is the westernmost point in Ireland, and so the locals like to claim that it's
the westernmost point in Europe, next stop is New York.
Dingle certainly is rather remote.
One could say, unspoiled, a more natural setting than in the hustle bustle of many European
locations.
It's not on the tourist route as much as more famous places like Killarney and Galway and
Dublin and Cork, and therefore it's a more quiet place.
It's a little bit more peaceful.
And yet Main Street is lined with pubs as you see, and there are lots of shops to keep
you busy.
Woolen garments are one of the favorite items that people love to shop for here.
Get that Irish fisherman sweater or a traditional scarf.
Along with tourism, fishing is another major activity in Dingle and surrounding waters,
which are very productive for large-scale fishing.
No surprise that restaurants here specialize in fresh fish and one of the more popular
places is Out Of the Blue, that is usually packed with locals and tourists queue up to
get in, so make your reservations ahead of time.
They are ranked number one on Trip Advisor, but they don't serve any meat, only seafood
and vegetables, of course.
The menu changes every day depending on what's available from the fishing boats that dock
right across the street.
If you're down at the harbor pier in the morning you might see some of the big fishing boats
come in.
These are large-scale factory boats generally from other European countries, and they use
Dingle as a principal harbor.
Fishing has always been a major economic activity in Ireland.
Maps from the early 14th century already shows some important fishing grounds.
Irish fisheries were famous and productive for centuries, but by the middle of the 20th
century it had begun to collapse.
The recovery in recent decades has made the waters off the Irish coast in the North Atlantic
among the most productive in the world.
The fish are brought ashore packed in ice containers that are destined for the continent.
They are heading for France and Spain, not so much for consumption in Ireland, although
some of the fish do find their way to the local restaurants and fish markets.
What is that?
John Dory.
John Dory?
Yeah.
Okay.
And they’re all the same?
It’s skate, haddock.
It goes to France, other fish go to Spain.
Spain?
Yes, the skate, the haddock, the John Dory, it goes to France.
And the other fish, monkfish, goes to Spain, yeah.
Fish consumption in Spain is six times greater than that of Ireland, per capita, a big demand.
The local commercial Dingle fishing fleet just consists of a handful of boats anymore.
And recreational fishing is a popular item with tourists, while the seagulls wait for
their meal.
We had a chance to eat in another one of the better restaurants of Dingle, Global Village,
owned by Nuala Cassidy and Martin Bealin, right on the main street.
They have been there for 16 years and developed quite a reputation.
Hello, Martin here, with Global Village restaurant.
Well, we had a chance to talk with Martin, the owner-chef, while he was hard at work
in the kitchen preparing his foods.
But he took some time to describe his dishes and tell us about was happening in the Dingle
restaurant scene.
Dingle is the place to eat in Ireland, it’s the one.
The reason is, we’ve got the ocean right beside us, got the hills all around us, organic
farms, organic vegetables, great, chefs, and a good tourist base to keep the whole thing
ticking on.
Not to mention the scenery, the culture, the music, all of things that were here already
in place, and tourism coming.
Now we’ve just added food into the mix.
Great quality craft beers and drinks happening in the pubs.
Dingle spend a tourist destination for thirty years.
It’s been a food destination, probably, for only five or six now, since 2008.
So as the tourism comes in, it starts to support more restaurants, a snowball thing, you know,
it starts a snowball, because chefs are attracted to where they’re going to make a living.
Nobody is setting up in a town in the middle of nowhere where nobody’s going to buy your
food.
Ha.
Right, right.
And it’s good to have competition.
Competition breeds excellence, it’s all about competition.
And it brings more customers.
It brings more customers, everybody works together, and the whole thing works.
It’s become about the food, you know.
Not only about the food, but it’s very much factored into decisions to travel, you know.
Sure.
People just say, hey, well, you know, that’s a great spot but there’s no restaurants.
So if they look and they go hey that’s a good spot, and you know, you can really, eat
well there, that starts to make a whole difference.
It can be the deciding point.
It can be the decider, can’t it, you know.
And you get the fish from the docks?
Yeah, we get fish straight off the boats.
Straight up the boats, straight, beautiful fresh fish.
Meat from the Kerry hills, and we grow all our own vegetables, organically.
Oh you do?
So this is from our garden.
We have the organic garden back in Ventry.
Uh-huh.
So now we have the freshness of the vegetables that are coming in at the moment.
Carrots purée and red cabbage some bac choy and baby fennel, spinach an asparagus and
white turnips.
Um-hhm.
Good and healthy, wholesome, and organic.
That’s a black sole, also known as Dover sole in certain areas.
In England it’s called a Dover sole.
It’s a beautiful fish, only best served on the bone.
Hake, and that’s a risotto, locally-made chorizo on top.
Here we have some ray wing, ray wing, also known as skate, or a ray wing.
It’s really quite different, juicy, juicy taste.
It’s organic wild boar from Ballinwillin farm, a pancetta made from the wild boar,
and a polenta cake, this polenta cake from a purée.
(kitchen noise) And the salad, yes.
They are open for dinner every day except Tuesday from 5:30 PM.
It's easy to walk here.
From the waterfront, for example, it is just 500 meters away.
Dingle is rather compact.
And our hotel is practically across the street.
The Benners, a great place to rest up, and get up in the morning and have a delicious
Irish breakfast.
Getting ready for another big day, we’re leaving town and heading south.
Be sure to look at our Ireland series for the complete picture that opens the door to
this magical country