Dingle Bay
Dingle Bay is a bay indenting the wild west coast of County Kerry. The furthermost point of the Dingle Peninsula on the north shore of the bay marks the westernmost points of mainland Ireland. The harbour town of Dingle stands on the north side of the bay.
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Geography
The bay runs approximately 25 miles from north-east to south-west into the Atlantic Ocean. It is approximately two miles wide at the head, and twelve and a half miles wide at the entrance. The bay is flanked on the north by the Dingle Peninsula, and on the south by the Iveragh Peninsula. The River Maine enters the bay at its head.
The harbour town of Dingle lies on the north side of the bay. Other villages overlooking the bay include Ventry, Ballymeentrant, Beenbane, and Kinard, and Annascaul and Glenbeigh lie near the bay. Killorglin stands at the head of the bay at the mouth of the River Laune.[1]
There are no notable islands within the bay, but towards the head, several peninsulas, in particular Inch Strand, extend a significant distance across its width. Part of the bay is a protected lowland estuary with tidal flats.[2] On the south side of the bay, on the Iveragh Peninsula, there is a bird sanctuary which is an important breeding site for the red-billed chough. This area has cliffs, topped with grassland and heathland.[1]
History
In the 19th century, Dingle Bay was rich in fish stocks and Dingle had a competent and efficient workforce. This was largely due to the efforts of the "Society for Bettering the Condition of the Poor of Ireland", and the improvements they made in coastal fisheries in Kerry. The bay was said to abound in pilchard, herring, cod, hake and ling, and the boats often landed exotic fish that were more associated with the Mediterranean region, Portugal and Spain.[3]
Dingle Bay was the first feature of Europe that aviator Charles Lindbergh encountered in 1927 during his pioneering 33-hour transatlantic flight in the Spirit of St. Louis monoplane from New York to Paris.[4] (The moment is enacted in the 1957 film The Spirit of St. Louis (film)|The Spirit of St. Louis, in which Lindbergh was portrayed by Jimmy Stewart who waves to the villagers of Dingle Bay as he flies over it in jubilation.)
Location
- Location map: 52°4’0"N, 10°10’60"W
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("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Dingle Bay) |
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Data Zone: Iveragh peninsula". Birdlife International. http://datazone.birdlife.org/site/factsheet/672. Retrieved 28 March 2020.
- ↑ Cooper, Tom (18 September 2012). Cycle Touring in Ireland. Cicerone Press Limited. pp. 167–. ISBN 978-1-84965-294-0. https://books.google.com/books?id=tvBGZi7Af3cC&pg=PA167.
- ↑ Cusack, Mary Francis (1871). A History of the Kingdom of Kerry. Longmans, Green & Company. pp. 441–442. https://books.google.com/books?id=swJFAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA441.
- ↑ Gill, Brendan (1977). Lindbergh Alone. Minnesota Historical Society Press. p. 114. ISBN 978-0-87351-426-2. https://books.google.com/books?id=Da0RjoF-O0EC&pg=PA114.
