A Day in Dingle

June 14, 2025

Dingle is quite a cute trendy town and on a pretty Saturday in June it shone. We had a relaxing brunch - compliments of Mona’s cooking. The house she rented is quite large and sits just outside the busy center of Dingle so it’s a great location.

Dingle is a long skinny town on a small harbor. It was traditionally a fishing village that has become a popular tourist place and is known for its dolphin named Fungie, a blue-nosed dolphin that began visiting the local fishermen in the harbor in 1983 and became a mascot around Dingle for 37 years. He did not appear in 2020 but it is not known if he died or just swam away!

In the morning we wandered around the town, checking out Mona’s favorite spots and getting a pretty good idea about what is available in the town. She has stayed in Dingle many times so knows it well.

In the afternoon we visited Dingle Distillery - a local whiskey distillery that started in 2012. It was my first whiskey tour and it was a good one, in part because it was my first! Dingle Distiller's three founders/owners used local investment money to help fund its start by selling future shares of whiskey in barrels. They also produce gin and vodka. It takes a lot of capital to start a distillery. Copper stills alone run to 1M € and it takes a minimum of 3 to 5 years for the whiskey to age. Therefore, the distillery needs some way to earn cash while its whiskey ages. A common way to fill the earnings gap is to distill vodka and gin, which Dingle Distillery does. Their gin has proven to be exceptionally. The distillery has done amazingly well, winning a number of awards. We tasted gin, vodka and whiskey. I don’t like whiskey so the next few weeks is going to be a long month as we will be spending a lot of time riding to Speyside, tasting a lot of Scotch whisky along the way. Dave is a whiskey/whisky guy and is looking forward to this part of the trip. (What I do for love).

Dingle Distillery came up with an imaginative funding method of raising initial capital by selling whiskey futures. Each plank in the wall represents an early investor, most of whom live in the area.

Afterwords we stopped into a famous local pub, Dick Mac’s, and had a drink and checked out the scene. Traditionally, local pubs had a separate business purpose during the day and then opened as a pub in the evening. In the case of Dick Mac’s it was a haberdashery, and today it still functions as a belt maker and shoe repair shop during the day, and pub by night!

That evening we had a signature dinner at Solas, an upscale restaurant written up in Food and Wine. With three of us we could split a number of small and medium plates (oysters, scallops, fig tempura) and a lamb rib roast. Afterwards the chef, Nicky, came over and spent 15 minutes talking to us, which was great. He was a lovely gregarious Irishman.

Solar owner/chef Nicky schmoozing with the customers.

It was a great day off the bike and so nice to spend some time with my friend. She has lived on the other side of the country for a long time so we haven't spent much time with each other. Now that she is retired, I hope we can see her more often! Thanks for hosting us, Mona.

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