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Dingle Peninsula

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Dingle Peninsula

The Dingle Peninsula (Irish: Corca Dhuibhne; anglicised as Corkaguiny or Corcaguiny, the name of the corresponding barony) is the northernmost of the major peninsulas in County Kerry. It ends beyond the town of Dingle at Dunmore Head, the westernmost point of mainland Ireland. It is separated from the Iveragh Peninsula to the south by the Dingle Bay.

The Dingle Peninsula is named after the town of Dingle. The peninsula is also commonly called Corca Dhuibhne (Corcu Duibne) even when those referring to it are speaking in English. Corca Dhuibhne, which means "seed or tribe of Duibhne" (a Goddess from Irish mythology and an Irish clan name), refers to the túath (people, nation) of Corco Dhuibhne who occupied the peninsula in the Middle Ages and who also held a number of territories in the south and east of County Kerry.

The peninsula exists because of the band of sandstone rock that forms the Slieve Mish mountain range at the neck of the peninsula, in the east, and the Brandon Group of mountains, and the Mountains of the Central Dingle Peninsula further to the west. Ireland's highest mountain outside MacGillycuddy's Reeks, Mount Brandon at 951 m, forms part of a high ridge with views over the peninsula and North Kerry.

Conor Pass, which runs from Dingle on the south-western end of the peninsula towards Brandon Bay and Castlegregory in the north-east, is the highest mountain pass in Ireland,[citation needed] a narrow, twisting road; it weaves its way around the sharp cliff faces and past the high corrie lakes.

The Blasket Islands lie off the west coast. They are known for the literary and linguistic heritage of the former inhabitants. However, these remote islands have been uninhabited since the 1950s following an evacuation.

The western end of the peninsula is a Gaeltacht (Irish-speaking area) that has produced and heavily influenced a number of storytellers, poets, and writers highly important to Modern literature in Irish; Piaras Feiritéar, Máire Mhac an tSaoi, Pádraig Ó Siochfhradha, Cáit Feiritéar, and Peig Sayers among others. This is the westernmost part of Ireland, and the village of Dún Chaoin is often jokingly referred to as "the next parish to America."

Although he greatly admired the post-Irish War of Independence Gaeltacht memoirs from Corca Dhuibhne and the surrounding islands, and particularly the memoirs of Great Blasket Island seanchaithe Tomás Ó Criomhthain, novelist Flann O'Brien also chose to satirize their cliches quite mercilessly in his modernist novel An Béal Bocht ("The Poor Mouth"), which is set in the fictional, desperately poor, and constantly raining Gaeltacht of (Corca Dhorcha); a parody of (Irish: Corca Dhuibhne).

Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh, award-winning seán-nos singer and performer of Irish traditional music, was born in the Aran Islands, but grew up in Dún Chaoin. Nic Amhlaoibh has both performed and recorded Irish language songs from Corca Dhuibhne, including at least one song composed upon the nearby Great Blasket Island.

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