Just call me The Dingle Hopper

This evening I drove south from Limerick to Kenmare and then east to the Ring of Kerry. As I did so, I passed the Dingle Peninsula and remembered that I still had a few more tidbits about Dingle to share.

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I arrived pretty early in the morning and walked around town to orient myself (pretty easy, as it’s just a handful of streets).

Dingle is a bayside town that that was founded as a port town following the Norman Invasion of Ireland (12th century). In the 1800s, the effects of the potato blight were slightly eased by the fishing industry. Today, it is a colorful town (thanks, in part, to the Tidy Town competition) that relies heavily on tourism.

Vintage photo I stumbled upon later of (turn-of-the-century?) Dingle. From the SAME POSITION as my photo above. Either I have professional-level taste or an unimaginative eye.

The town is littered with pubs, many of which have traditional music playing at night. This one, Foxy John's, was highly recommended by Rick Steves. Well, it was noon and I didn't have any business in a pub, but this was no normal pub. Walking by the window, I saw that it had vegetable and garden seeds! The perfect excuse for me to take a quick look inside. Also, as it was noon, I figured that nobody would be in there.

The door creaked open and I first saw worn old wood floors and smelled old leather. (It looks like these traditional pubs grew out of combination hardware-watering hole places.) In addition to my desired seeds, there were also several locals sitting at the bar, sipping Guinness and talking about... I don't know. How this year's crop of lambs turned out?

As if rehearsed, they stopped talking and all turned to me. I couldn't say, "I'll have a pint, please", but instead said, "Oh, um, I'd like to get some seeds, please." (Suddenly I was super interested in Irish vegetable gardens.) "Oh what kind are ye lookin' fer, then?" "Er, corn seeds?" (I mean, it'd be kinda cool to grow a crop of Irish corn next year, right?) There were exactly three packets of seeds left on the window display--clearly agriculture isn't their main business--but the bartender/hardware-er brought out a more full display. Trying to soak in the environment, I took my time selecting flower seeds, but also realized that this was probably a totally unusual situation for the patrons. I paid my few Euros and then walked out, looking around without looking like I was looking around.

I mentioned the other day that the area's population had been severely reduced by the Famine and emigration, and the effects can still be observed today in the form of abandoned stone houses. Now that the area is a major tourist destination, vacation homes are sprouting up here and there (the lead singer of The Cranberries even had a house here!).

Why anyone would want to live here is beyond me.

Despite the presence of ruined houses, the chic thing to do now is to renovate poverty-stricken structures into vacation cottages. Want.

Ruined, background. Renovated, foreground.

My first evening in Dingle, I went to a Irish music concert at a church, but I'll hold of on writing about that in the interest of space and attention span.

But I stepped out of the church after the concert to this beautiful view of the sun setting over the bay.