Dingle

Dingle Peninsula Food and Wine Festival

Dingle Food and Wine Festival I’ve been involved with a group planning for a Dingle Food and Wine Festival for this coming October (12-14th). It’s a very exciting prospect, indeed!

Dingle Chefs with LobstersIt will consist of tasting menus in restaurants, cooking demonstrations, and food trails. There is still much to finalise, but we did get Valerie O’Sullivan, a Killarney-based photographer, for a photo shoot with about 20 Dingle chefs, so we could start putting some marketing materials together.

The festival website is here, but it is still under construction. Stay tuned!

Technorati tags: , , , , ,

Staffing Shortage in Dingle

Help wanted 

It often is hard to find good staff in Dingle, but this year things are verging on the ridiculous. Our shop manager, Russell, is leaving us, and we’re going into the season short four people in our Dingle shop. We have ads in and notices up, and we are getting very few replies indeed.

Staff shortages are a Dingle phenomenon, at least when it comes to the service industry, and the situation has become more difficult in recent times. We have loads of interest every time we hire in Killarney, but take a walk through Dingle, and you will see a parade of help-wanted signs in shop and restaurant windows. If it wasn’t for the influx of foreign nationals, I think Dingle would have to shut down.

What to do? It’s always been possible to pick up a few college students, but that doesn’t help much come October, when we still need staff and students are back in school. We need a core of permanent employees.

It would seem that people like myself and my brother, who think that living in Dingle and working in an ice cream shop is about as cool as it gets, are very rare indeed…

Technorati tags: , , ,

Feile na Bealtaine

Feile na Bealtaine Feile na Bealtaine, the annual May arts festival, is back in Dingle from May 1-7th. Anyone coming to Dingle during this time (and I highly recommend it) is in for a real treat.

The theme is Dingle’s links with Santiago de Campostella in Spain, since Dingle was one of the recognised leaving points for the pilgrimage. The festival kicks off with the Jeannie Johnston sailing off bringing pilgrims across the waters.

Some of the festival highlights are performences by Aslan, David Kitt, Mary Black, Scullion, The Four of Us, and Moya Brennan of Clannad fame.

There is also plenty of theatre, art exibitions, lectures, etc… Programs and tickets are available through the festival office on Main Street. The website is here.

Technorati tags: , , , , ,

Dingle Traffic Management Plan

There is a lot of anger in Dingle at the moment over the new traffic management plan proposed by Kerry County Council, and I spent half the afternoon in a meeting about it. Basically their idea is to remove all of the street parking from the town centre, restrict car access, and build a new ring road with remote parking lots. It seems the way of the new Ireland to make it more and more difficult to get into, park, and live in town centres, which has the effect of hurting the town but boosting development on the outskirts. We’re rapidly becoming a country of suburban sprawl and shopping malls, but we will try here in Dingle to keep our town intact.

Following is a humourous look at the new Dingle that I came across:

 Town Map

Technorati tags: , , , , , 

Part of Slea Head Drive Closed

Slea Head Drive Following the news of the collapse of part of Slea Head Drive, I headed out to Dunquin this afternoon to check it out. The road is still intact but closed to traffic since cracks have appeared after the landslide. They are already building a new stretch of road, which should be open in a few weeks if things to well, which is important to all the businesses in the area. In the mean time, diversions are in place…

Technorati tags: , , ,

New Sign for Dingle

Votail Nil It’s been a crazy weekend in the shops, with a massive Easter rush, and I have hardly had a chance to catch my breath, let alone post anything. However, this sign has just appeared at the Milltown roundabout in Dingle, and I couldn’t resist snapping a photo. It certainly will get Dingle people talking.

For those without Irish, it’s a reference to the Dáil’s upcoming election and the difficulties facing the area and says: No Name, No Farmers, No Fishermen, No Small Businesses, No Post Offices, Vote No to Fianna Fáil. “Gan” actually means “without,” but hopefully you get the idea…

Technorati tags: , ,

Cycling in the Maharees

Maharees With all this beautiful weather, we’ve been really busy in both shops. We are training two new staff members in Dingle and trying to keep up with the work.

Maharees With MountainsStill, I did manage to get out for a cycle, heading over the Conor Pass to Castlegregory and the Maharees. This spit of land, known as the windsurfing capital of Ireland, makes for a perfect cycle on a calm day, since it is relatively flat.

In the summer, it can be full of cars as the caravan parks fill to capacity and the surfers and windsurfers arrive in earnest. This time of year, the roads were quite empty and the scenery beautiful.

As with many places in Kerry, there has been a huge amount of development, with dozens of new houses since I was there last. Still, it’s worth a wander to hear the call of the sea birds and the sound of the waves. If you want a change of pace from the bike, there are miles of shoreline to explore.

Technorati tags: , , , , , Â