Daingean Uí Chúis (Dingle town)

Ireland Journal

Days 5-6-7-8

St. Mary's Church, Dingle

Dingle

Having explored Ballyferriter on Monday, for Tuesday and Wednesday I drive Janet into Dingle, (Daingean Uí Chúis, or An Daingean) and stay to explore; by Wednesday I am confident enough driving that we bring along fellow students. During my time here I find: (4) grocers, (2) hostels, post office, (small) thrift store, hardware, library, park, free parking, internet cafe, (2) chemists (pharmacies), tourist office, (2) laundries, the language school class, the secondary school, the former hospital. Pubs, restaurants, and gift shops are too many to count or care.

A few places are memorable -- Foxy Johns is a cluttered bike repair and tool shop during the day, and a small pub at night. The movie theater also sells and rents dvd movies. A small stream runs through town, supporting unexpected plants and a couple of B&B's.

The Friday farmers market is small but vibrant, tasty, diverse with baked goods and cheeses and French pates and sausage sandwiches; surprisingly though, in mid July fresh produce is little more than carrots, onions, and potatoes.

Early on I buy a small leather coinpurse from a impoverished small thrift store that for a few days I will like greatly and then loose. In many places I stop and ponder, frame, point, click the camera, click again. I can't claim to take these pictures, for on Thursday the images I capture will, with the coinpurse, free themselves: scenes of the town -- the streets, the water, the churches; and of plants -- small ferns growing out of old walls and fuschias growing over them, invasive stands of Japanese knotweed and butterfly bush that crowd the stream flowing through town. No matter. I also locate maps to digest and make my own, as well as to give away.

Over the next two days and a third one Friday, (these photos all from then), I will learn the basics of Dingle, but it is harder to like it, a tourist mob scene of people wandering in and out of stores that are hawking wares, and merchants aiming to make some Euros off us and be pleasant about it. Occasionally I get a look behind the mirror -- the thrift store, the weary old men, the hot harried laundress, the stone walls that are facade on cinder block. Dingle is a town overrun by the tourist trade at its worst, everchanging mobs of people and the constant jockeying of traffic and parking that interferes with the commerce it is supposed to help.

To be fair, there are scenes in Dingle I like a great deal -- out of the way places away from the craziness of tourist commerce. An almost hidden walkway near Janet's school leads me to a Madonna whose back is turned away from the din as well, the end of a dead-end street by a unassuming green-space.

For Janet Dingle is different. Her class of 8 beginners are all non- Irish -- German, French, Russian, American. They meet in a large room with old covered sofas, a long teaching table, a sink, some computers. On Tuesday Janet and I meet for lunch at the Dingle school, place chairs outside. In the time it takes me to go buy a lunch she eats hers. She does not mind eating alone -- her brain is full and the quiet is good. In the afternoon I again meet her and the class, and walk to a nearby church and chapel. The chapel is filled with stained glass paintings by Harry Clarke, a well known glass artist of the early and mid twentieth century. While I retrieve the car Janet waits in the church; together we fuel it, pick up the laundry, and return to Ballyferriter for dinner and evening activities.

On Wednesday Janet and I again meet for lunch, only this time I have mine. A simple lunch is so easy, because every small grocer sells wonderful cheese and excellent brown bread. We walk a couple of blocks to a choice park hidden behind a gate and wall and visited only by a few locals, (and rare curious tourists who boldly explore around at the same church we visited yesterday, or watch a child play on the swing with her parent. Janet and I return to her class, and then I visit the library, make an effort to look at and transfer photos from the camera. The effort fails, so instead I look at email. In hindsight I would instead have spent a bit of time and money at the internet cafe, but I did not. Again after class we opt out of the Dingle hubbub and return to Ballyferriter.