Can you stand one more gorgeous peninsula? Although I can’t promise this will be the last. We have the rest of the Wild Atlantic Way to explore as we head north toward Northern Ireland. But the Dingle Peninsula is certainly one of the most beautiful, and worth sharing.

Slea Head Drive is a scenic, 18-mile loop on the western end of the Dingle Peninsula, in Gaeltacht country. Established in 1922 when the Free State of Ireland was created, An Gaeltacht is the part of the country that is primarily Irish speaking—mostly the central-west and northwest coasts. When the western part of the Dingle Peninsula opted to revert to their native language, the Irish government required that all signs be posted in Irish only—no English. Word has it that tourists were getting lost on their way to Dingle Town, the beginning of the Gaeltacht region on the peninsula, because they didn’t realize that “An Daingean” on road signs is the Irish name for Dingle. So the tourist mecca was granted dispensation and allowed to post signs in English as well as Irish; however, Irish must be posted above English. 

It’s surprising to me that in the 800 years that Great Britain dominated Ireland—and outlawed use of the Irish language—the language wasn’t lost completely. If the majority of the Irish population hadn’t been rural, it may well have been. No wonder An Gaeltacht today includes some of the remotest parts of Ireland. But there is no guarantee that the language will survive, even though Ireland has an educational requirement that all students become fluent in Irish. I read that in An Gaeltacht only two-thirds of the people speak Irish as their main language during the course of their day. History shows that when less than two-thirds of a people use a language, the language is at risk of dying out.

Speaking of remote parts of Ireland, we stopped at the Blasket Islands Heritage Centre in Dún Chaoin/Dunquin to learn more about this cluster of six islands just two kilometers off the coast. Irish farmers settled on Great Blasket Island centuries ago, living off of fish, mutton, beef, and whatever vegetables they could grow. They were so isolated from the mainland that their language essentially became frozen in time, while the language on the mainland continued to evolve. By the 20th century, islanders were speaking their own dialect of Irish. 

The population on Great Blasket peaked in the early 20th century at about 175, but in 1953 the government had to evacuate the last 22 residents, by mutual consent, because of increasingly extreme weather conditions in the North Atlantic that would make rescue, if required, nearly impossible. A few former residents have gone back to the island, but today it is primarily a tourist day-trip destination. The government has recently purchased most of the land and plans to turn it into a national park. I hope the signs are all in Irish, despite the tourists.

Tír álainn (beautiful country).