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When the Christian missionaries came from Britain in the 5th Century, they gradually abandoned their own sophisticated religions and though they embraced Christianity, they incorporated many of their former practices into the new religion.

The Christian oratories and monasteries soon became wealthy and those near the coasts and rivers were easy prey to the Vikings of the 9th and 10th centuries.  The Vikings were, in their turn, defeated in 1014 A.D. by the high king of Ireland Brian Boru.

In the following century, taking advantage of the infighting among the Irish clans, the Anglo-Normans made a successful landing in Ireland in the 1170’s and quickly began to dominate the country.  Dingle owes its origin to their colonisation and locally, they built a castle in the town as well as ones in Rahinnane, Gallarus, Minard and Castlegregory.  They also introduced the laege monastic orders such as the Cistercians, Benedictines and Augustinians and generally brought the wayward Irish church under the strict control of Rome.

 

Dingle town was a walled medieval town and important links with Bristol and Spain.  It figured prominently in the rebellions against Queen Elizabeth in the 16th century and received a grant from her to rebuild its bombarded garrisons – the name Dingle is itself a corruption of the Irish ‘Daingean’, meaning fortification.

Soon after the ice-flows of the last Ice Age had receded northwards, Mesolithic (middle stone age) settlers began their intrepid exploration of Ireland.  When they arrived, about 8,000 years ago, they found a densely wooded country, with a warm but damp oceanic climate.  For over 3,000 years they pursued their hunting-gathering existence, making little impact on the landscape and leaving very little evidence of their live.

Then, round about 3,000 B.C. (5,000 years ago), Neolithic farmers began to colonise the land and using fire and stone tools, were able to clear some of the forest and build permanent settlements.  These settlers buried their chieftains in stone tombs, as did their successors in the Stone Age, i.e. About 500 B.C, - these also left us the standing stones and the cup and circle stones.  The Dingle area is rich in these monuments, e.g. Dunbeg, Milltown, and Lispole.  The pre-Celtic colonists, i.e. The Milesians, the Fir Bolgs, and the Tuatha de Danann, were woven into the myths and legends which later were written down by the Christian monks.

The Celts came about 500 B.C. and they brought with them a knowledge of metalworking and they have left us with many very fine ornate bronze artefacts.  They built ring-forts for their homesteads, they inscribed Ogham stones and built beehive huts.