Climbing in Dingle

Well this weekend saw my first trip to Ireland (I know, I’m only 30 miles away). After an excellent introduction with a party in Dublin, complete with violin, guitar and Irish music (not to mention some excellent scones) we headed down to Dingle in Kerry with the DIT climbing club. Climbing.ie has a good set of route descriptions (Dunshean Head route descriptions) although we ended up at the cliff head without any guide. Dunshean Head is an ideal location for VS-HVS climbing, and is an atmospheric location with 25-40 metre routes from a wide non-tidal ledge. The rock’s all pretty clean and there are plenty of easy escapes, and you can’t beat the feeling of climbing with the sea beating about around you. The lie of the cliff means that even if it’s gusty around the Peter Pan route, the area around the needle should be sheltered.

The needle itself is worryingly thin, with a couple of good looking lines up it at VS and E1 (although I didn’t get a chance to venture out there myself). Overall, the area is well worth the visit if you’re climbing around VS, and the harsh E2 and E3’s of the smooth wall at least look like meaningful ventures.

One of the highlights of the trip for me was actually a full wall traverse from Peter Pan round to the niche before the needle. I reckon it goes at about V5/V6, although I never managed to link the move through the smooth wall. The puddles of water and seaweed were almost predictably placed below the crux, giving me plenty of time to soak in the atmosphere while me feet dried out!

The cliff is only about 5 minutes from Dingle, which in turn was only 4 1/2 hours from Dublin. We stayed in a rather luxurious set of holiday homes just before the “Welcome to Dingle” markings on the road. They’re just next to the hostel, and are a brilliant place to relax on the evening.

Unfortunately we didn’t get much time to see anything else except for the cliffs of Dingle, but I’ll certainly be heading back there when I get a chance.