The village of Dún Chaoin (Dunquin) seen from near the top of Mount Eagle, the massif that separates the village from the rest of the Dingle Peninsula. We are looking due west in this photograph, looking out over the Blasket Islands and directly at— as the locals would say— "Next parish, America!"
Dún Chaoin is the westernmost village in Ireland. The year-around population is about 160. The language spoken in Dún Chaoin, and in the little two-room schoolhouse that serves the community, is Irish, sometimes called Gaelic. A few of the older folk have little English, but for the most part everyone speaks English as a fluent second tongue.
Dún Chaoin is an old place. It contains medieval ruins, memories of the Armada, and relics of famine times, during which the population of the village was about 1600.
There's a funny story about how I happened to choose Dún Chaoin as the epi-center of my Irish trips, but I'll save it for some pub evening over a pint.
