The distinctive peninsulas that characterise this south west corner of Ireland present challenges to the modern day tourist, with cars and coaches traversing narrow twisting roads. Meanwhile the locals have to put up with peak season congestion as they go about their everyday business. It’s lucky then that nobody seems in a hurry to get anywhere fast.
The Dingle peninsula boasts over 2,000 historical monuments and that reflects its remote location and farming way of life over thousands of years. Rocks cleared from patchworks of land built drystone field walls and farmhouses that distinguish this rugged landscape.
The ancient inhabitants of the peninsula were skilled in using the water as their sea roads. These would also have been trade routes and their culture and artefacts reflect that. We were lucky enough to get some sense of their world from the handful of sites visited on our traverse of the 38k/24 mile circular route marketed for tourist purposes as the Slea Head Drive. As advised we drove clockwise, with the traffic and not against it.
A Mountain range dominates the centre of the 48k/30m long peninsula, ending at the westernmost point in Ireland around Dunmore Head. It was here in 1588 that two of the remaining ships of the Spanish Armada’s failed invasion of England were tragically wrecked. The narrow road in and out of Dingle town, its busy main population centre, hugs the jagged coastline by cove cliff and beach.
Dun Beag (‘small fort’) on the cliffs at Fahan has a beautifully created visitor centre inspired by traditional vernacular design. Here we watched an introductory film while sitting in the dark on animal hides in an intimate environment, suggesting the domestic interior of the 5,000 year old promontory fort below.
The streamside path leading to the fort with its massively wide dry stone walls is unexpectedly graced by lilies, while the bare sea cliffs below sport patches of thrift.
Storm damage this century has been extensive and fences now secure the site from over enthusiastic exploration but it still exudes a strong sense of its ancient role guarding the wild sea ways. This once formidable stronghold created was in the Iron Age, though archaeological evidence suggests Dun Beag remained in use between 8th – 11th centuries.
A short drive westwards brought us to the a group of Clochlans, better known because of their shape as beehive huts. Dating from the early medieval period they were home to Christian communities of farmers and fisherfolk and are remarkably well preserved. We learned that although significant historic monuments like these belong to the state, owners of the land have the right to grant paid access to the public.
Here the huts are part of a wider offer by Aiden, the occupying farmer and his family, to feed lambs and watch sheep dogs at work. A nice line in farming for tourism in the C21s. Good on them.
Beyond this compact set of interlinked dwellings I glimpsed another cluster higher up the hill and the farmer’s dad (who it turned out had spent most of his working life in England as a labourer), told me access rights were in dispute and the owners were keeping it as was and unvisited. He felt those buildings were even more complete and whole than their own.
Our trio of antiquities was completed by a visit to the early Christian oratory at Gallarus. Dating from around 500 AD and fashioned in the shape of an upturned boat, the chapel is lit only at the far end by a simple window. An austere and striking symbol of the Celtic Church overlooking a harbour that has outlasted Viking raids, Norman conquests and everything the weather has thrown at it.
Made of gritstone the oratory measures 8m long x 5m wide and 5 m high. Some graveyard stones remain, like this simple cross inscribed in stone.
Thought of the skill seen in constructing beehive huts when viewing this little church, as the stones of various graded sizes meet to form the roof ridge. Also bore in mind that the central aisle of a church is called the nave because of that upturned boat shape, from Latin ‘navis’ for ship.
We left Dingle entranced by the extraordinary sights, sorry not to have time to do more but glad to have sensed the life of the past through wonderfully well preserved examples of its fortifications, homes and churches.
STEPHEN TOMLIN 