Dingle: Out of this world
DINGLE sparkles like a dragée on a cake-shaped map of Ireland, a bauble glittering and enticing, almost slipping off the edge of the island to disappear in kelp beds under guttural, gurgling waves. On the shore of a changing, enfolding sea and almost overloaded with folklore and legend, the town’s heartbeat, at this time of the year at least, is tourism. This enterprise is served by the ever-obliging Fungi and an array of restaurants with considerable reputations, some more deserved than others.
Despite its identity crisis of recent years — just like Derry/Londonderry it leads a double, conflicted life — the town never had any difficulty in identifying or realising potential. For many years the town has understood that if it was to compete with the region’s other attractions it needed something a tad above the ordinary. And the town’s restaurants are more than equal to that challenge.
