''Dún Chaoin'' ( Irish, meaning 'pleasant fort' ), unofficially

anglicised Anglicisation or anglicization is a form of cultural assimilation whereby something non-English becomes assimilated into or influenced by the culture of England. It can be sociocultural, in which a non-English place adopts the English language ...

as Dunquin, is a

Gaeltacht A ( , , ) is a district of Ireland, either individually or collectively, where the Irish government recognises that the Irish language is the predominant vernacular, or language of the home. The districts were first officially recognised ...

village in the west of

County Kerry County Kerry () is a Counties of Ireland, county on the southwest coast of Republic of Ireland, Ireland, within the Provinces of Ireland, province of Munster and the Southern Region, Ireland, Southern Region. It is bordered by two other countie ...

in the south-west of Ireland. Dunquin lies at the most westerly tip of the Dingle Peninsula (Irish: ''Corca Dhuibhne''), overlooking the Blasket Islands. At 10°27'16"W, it is the most westerly settlement of Ireland and of

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, excluding

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. Nearby Dunmore Head is the most westerly point of mainland

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

. The town is linked to Dingle via the R559 regional road. It is also part of the

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

of the same name. In summer, a ferry connects the village with the main island of the Blasket Islands. The village is located at the western end of the Barony of Corkaguiny (the name 'Corkaguiny' being the anglicised version of '' Corca Dhuibhne''). There is dramatic cliff scenery, with a view of the Blasket Islands, where Peig Sayers lived. A museum in the village tells the story of the Blaskets and the lives of the people who lived there including the well-known writers of the island, which includes Sayers, Tomás Ó Criomhthain, and Muiris Ó Súilleabháin. In 1588, when the

Spanish Armada The Spanish Armada (often known as Invincible Armada, or the Enterprise of England, ) was a Spanish fleet that sailed from Lisbon in late May 1588, commanded by Alonso de Guzmán, Duke of Medina Sidonia, an aristocrat without previous naval ...

returned via Ireland, many ships sought shelter in the Blasket Sound — the area between ''Dún Chaoin'' and the Islands — and some were wrecked there. A memorial stands on the cliffs overlooking the site. Dunquin is located on the Dingle Way, which is a 179 km circular walking trail which takes in much of the Dingle Peninsula.

''The Village''

A documentary film, titled ''The Village'', was made during 1967–68 by Paul Hockings and Mark McCarty. It was shot almost entirely in Dunquin and the Great Blasket. It was the first film to be completed in the style that came to be known as "observational cinema".

''Ryan's Daughter''

Scenes from the

1970 Events January * January 1 – Unix time epoch reached at 00:00:00 UTC. * January 5 – The 7.1 1970 Tonghai earthquake, Tonghai earthquake shakes Tonghai County, Yunnan province, China, with a maximum Mercalli intensity scale, Mercalli ...

film '' Ryan's Daughter'', based on a screenplay by Robert Bolt and directed by

David Lean Sir David Lean (25 March 190816 April 1991) was an English film director, producer, screenwriter, and editor, widely considered one of the most important figures of Cinema of the United Kingdom, British cinema. He directed the large-scale epi ...

, were shot at Coumineole Beach and ''Ceathrú'' (Caharhoo) in Dunquin. The town's then-struggling economy was largely revived by the production of this film and subsequent tourism. Its marginal condition beforehand had been documented in the 1968 ethnographic film ''The Village''.

Scoil Dhún Chaoin

''Scoil Náisiúnta Naomh Gobnait'', ''Dún Chaoin'', was first opened in 1914. Before that, the school was located across the road in ''Baile Bhiocáire''. During the 1970s, ''Scoil Dhún Chaoin'' was the subject of a countywide and national campaign which featured protest marches, sit-ins and arrests. A government decision to close the school was strongly opposed by the local community and, following almost three years of closure, the school was reopened in 1973.

CAMRA

The British

Campaign for Real Ale The Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) is an independent voluntary consumer organisation headquartered in St Albans, which promotes real ale, cider and perry and traditional British pubs and clubs. History The organisation was founded on 16 ...

(CAMRA) was founded in Kruger's Bar in Dunquin in 1971.

People

* Peig Sayers (1873–1958)

Irish language Irish (Standard Irish: ), also known as Irish Gaelic or simply Gaelic ( ), is a Celtic language of the Indo-European language family. It is a member of the Goidelic languages of the Insular Celtic sub branch of the family and is indigenous ...

memoirist and seanchaí. * Cáit Feiritéar (1916–2005) folklorist and seanchaí. * Folklorist Seosamh Ó Dálaigh. * Pádraig Monsignor de Brún (1889–1960),

Roman Catholic priest The priesthood is the office of the ministers of religion, who have been commissioned ("ordained") with the holy orders of the Catholic Church. Technically, bishops are a priestly order as well; however, in common English usage ''priest'' re ...

and Irish-language scholar from

County Tipperary County Tipperary () is a Counties of Ireland, county in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Munster and the Southern Region, Ireland, Southern Region. The county is named after the town of Tipperary (tow ...

. * Máire Mhac an tSaoi (1922–2021), Irish-language poet. Mhac an tSaoi spent much of her childhood visiting her uncle,

Monsignor Monsignor (; ) is a form of address or title for certain members of the clergy in the Catholic Church. Monsignor is the apocopic form of the Italian ''monsignore'', meaning "my lord". "Monsignor" can be abbreviated as Mons.... or Msgr. In some ...

de Brún, and chose to use ''Dún Chaoins dialect, folksongs, and folklore as the literary basis for her own poetry and poetics. While assigned to the Irish

embassy A diplomatic mission or foreign mission is a group of people from a Sovereign state, state or organization present in another state to represent the sending state or organization officially in the receiving or host state. In practice, the phrase ...

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shortly after the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, Mhac an tSaoi discovered the poetry of Federico Garcia Lorca, which inspired her to belatedly introduce Literary modernism into Irish poetry in the Irish-language. * Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh (b. 1978), award-winning seán-nos singer and performer of Irish traditional music, was born in the Aran Islands, but grew up in ''Dún Chaoin''. She was the lead singer for Danú, and from 2016 on she has been half of the

electronica Electronica is both a broad group of electronic-based music styles intended for listening rather than strictly for dancing and a music scene that came to prominence in the early 1990s in the United Kingdom. In the United States, the term is mos ...

duo Aeons. Nic Amhlaoibh has both performed and recorded Irish language songs from the ''Dún Chaoin'' area, including at least one song from Great Blasket Island.

Gallery

File:Blasket Centre.jpg, The Blasket Centre with the Blasket Islands visible in the distance File:Replica Blasket Cottage.jpg, Replica of a traditional Great Blasket cottage File:Dunquin Coastline.jpg, Jagged coastline near Dunquin Pier

References

External links

Dún Chaoin Entry on the Irelandscape Web Site
Towns and villages in County Kerry Civil parishes of County Kerry Gaeltacht places in County Kerry Gaeltacht towns and villages Dingle Peninsula {{Kerry-geo-stub