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Dingle

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For other uses, see the town in Ireland.

Template:Infobox Irish Place Dingle (Irish: An Daingean "the Fort" or Daingean Uí Chúis "O'Cuis's Fort") is a town in County Kerry in Ireland on the Atlantic coast some 50 kilometres (30 mi) west-south-west of Tralee and 80 kilometres (50 mi) west-north-west of Killarney. The town is situated on a natural harbour below Slievanea mountain on the large Dingle peninsula, which lies south of the River Shannon and north of the Ring of Kerry.

Principal industries in the town are tourism, fishing and farming. In 2006 Dingle had a population of 1,920.[1] Dingle is situated in a Gaeltacht region.

Places of interest

John Street, Dingle

Dingle's St. Mary's was a neo-Gothic church built to designs by J. J. McCarthy and O'Connell. The foundation stone was laid in 1862. It originally had a nave and aisles separated by arcades, supported on columns capped by octagonal tops. The arcades were demolished in one of the most radical reordering schemes to have been executed in Ireland. The project also saw the demolition of the exterior walls to below the original clerstory level, and, most notably, of the attic and upper ranges of the west elevation.dingle is home to a beast of a man which the locals only know him as the ["CLAIS"]

There are many opportunities to hear traditional Irish music in the town, particularly during the summer tourist season. Dingle has a number of pubs as well as restaurants and cafes. For a number of years it has been possible to rely on a resident bottlenose dolphin named Fungi or Fungie showing up for tour boats operating from the harbour. There is also an aquarium in the town called Dingle Oceanworld. The town has a growing arts scene and jeweller Brian de Staic is based there, as is the potter Louis Mulcahy and master crystal craftsman Sean Daly.

Colourful Dingle

Sport

Dingle is home to the Dingle GAA club, which plays the popular[2] traditional Irish game of Gaelic football. The most noted tournament in which Dingle compete is the Kerry Senior Football Championship.[3] Diarmuid Murphy and Tommy Griffin are current Dingle players who are on the Kerry GAA county team for the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship.[4] Dingle is also home to one of Irelands largest indoor climbing walls, Play At Height[5]. The centre has over 450 sq meters of climbing with an impressive 8.5 meter overhanging section.

People

Twin towns

File:100 0106.JPG
Statue of Fungie the Dolphin in Dingle
Country Place County / District / Region / State Originally twinned with Date
United States USA Santa Barbara California Dingle 2003
Italy Italy File:Tolfa-Stemma.gif Tolfa File:Lazio-Bandiera.png Lazio Dingle 1974

Transport

Dingle was formerly the western terminus of the narrow gauge Tralee and Dingle Light Railway. It was also the westernmost railway station in Europe.

The railway station opened on 1 April 1891, closed for passenger traffic on 17 April 1939 and for regular goods traffic on 10 March 1947, finally closing altogether on 1 July 1953 (by which time a cattle train once per month was the sole operation).[6]

Name

Spray-painted road sign

In 2005, Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs Éamon Ó Cuív announced that anglicised place names (such as 'Dingle') of Gaeltacht towns and villages would no longer feature on official signposts, and only the Irish language names would appear. The English language version of the town's name was thus officially dropped in early 2005, with the Irish name An Daingean being brought to the fore.

In the case of An Daingean, the move was particularly controversial, as the town relies heavily on the tourist industry, and a fear was held that the change could prevent potential visitors finding their way to the town. Detractors noted that tourists might not recognise the Irish name on sign-posts, and that there could also be confusion with a similarly named town (Daingean) in County Offaly. Supporters rejected this argument - pointing out that there are numerous towns in Ireland with similar names. The Minister added to the controversy by suggesting that a name change to English could be brought about by removing the town's Gaeltacht status, and thereby its entitlement to relevant government grants for Irish-speaking areas.

In late 2005 Kerry County Council approved the holding of a plebiscite for the change of name to the bilingual "Dingle/Daingean Uí Chúis"[7] which took place in October, 2006.[8] The result was announced on 20 October, and 1,005 from 1,086 returned ballots (out of an electorate of 1,222) favoured the name change to the bilingual version.[9][10] Éamon Ó Cuív stated however that there was no remit to act on the results of the plebiscite. In 2008 however, Minister for the Environment, John Gormley, announced that he intended to amend the local government laws to allow names chosen by local representatives in a plebiscite to supersede any Placenames Order under the Official Languages Act 2003.[11] This would mean that "Daingean Uí Chúis" would be the official name of the town in Irish, with "Dingle" the official name in English. However, the name of the town on road signs within the gaeltacht will continue to only display the name of the town in Irish. In the mean time, some locals took matters into their own hands by spray painting "Dingle" on road signs that only bear the Irish version of the name.

Looking out from the hills west of Dingle, near Slea Head.

See also

Look up dingle in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

References

  1. ^ "Census 2006 – Volume 1 – Population Classified by Area" (PDF). Central Statistics Office Census 2006 Reports. Central Statistics Office Ireland. 2007. Retrieved 2007-07-24. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  2. ^ "GAA attendance figures" (PDF). Retrieved 2008-03-25.
  3. ^ "Dingle football match report". 'The Kingdom' newspaper. 2005. Retrieved 2008-03-25. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  4. ^ "Murphy and Griffin appear for Kerry in the All-Ireland football final". RTÉ News. 2007. Retrieved 2008-03-25. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  5. ^ "Play At Height Website".
  6. ^ "Dingle station" (PDF). Railscot - Irish Railways. Retrieved 2007-09-23.
  7. ^ "Kerry CC votes to hold Dingle plebiscite". RTÉ News. 17 October 2005. Retrieved 2007-07-24.
  8. ^ "Dingle so good they may name it twice". Irish Independent. 9 October 2006. Retrieved 2007-07-24.
  9. ^ "90% vote in favour of An Daingean name change". RTÉ News. 20 October 2005. Retrieved 2007-07-24.
  10. ^ "Do you know the way to An Daingean?". BBC News. 20 October 2006. Retrieved 2007-07-24.
  11. ^ "Gormley proposes amendments to legislation on changing Placenames - Dingle and Daingean Uí Chúis to be official names of An Daingean". Local Government News. Dept. of the Environment. 2008. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
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