Survey reveals Dingle becoming a town of the elderly

DINGLE is becoming a town of the elderly, with the population of people aged over 50 increasing rapidly while the number of children has fallen dramatically in recent decades.

This was one of the stark realities about Dingle to emerge at a community meeting held in Benner’s Hotel last Tuesday night as part of the NEWKD’s ongoing socio-economic study of the Dingle Peninsula.

Outlining a raft of statistics drawn from the Census, social scientist Breandán Ó Caoimh, who is conducting the study for NEWKD, said a major demographic change has taken place in Dingle since the turn of the century.

For the purpose of the study, the Dingle area includes the town and adjoining areas, reaching almost to Ventry in the west, Ballinvounig to the east, and northwards to include Glens. In that area the number of children aged 14 years and younger dropped from 296 in 1996 to 184 just ten years later. The effects of this rapid decline are to be seen in the fall-off of pupil numbers in local primary schools and even in the difficulty in fielding junior football teams in Dingle.

Meanwhile, the population balance has shifted towards people aged over 50, whose numbers are increased by locals returning to their home place after they retire from jobs in the cities and abroad. Non-local retirees from Ireland and overseas are also attracted to Dingle, adding to the area’s increasingly elderly age profile.

Allied to this, the statistics show that Dingle – and West Kerry generally – has an exceptionally high number of people living alone. One third of the households in Dingle are occupied by just one person; in Ventry the figure rises to 38 per cent; while Lios Póil is on the lower end of the scale with 31 per cent of ‘one person households’. This is way out of step with the norm in Ireland as a whole, where just 23 per cent of households are occupied by one person.

The NEWKD survey also points to a very high number of holiday homes on the Dingle Peninsula. In Dingle town and the surrounding area 64 per cent of houses are permanently occupied and 21 per cent are classed as unoccupied holiday homes. To the east of the town the number of holiday homes drops; to the west it increases. In Annascaul, for example, 14 per cent of the houses are holiday homes, in Ventry it’s 36 per cent, in the Baile an Fheirtéaraigh, Dún Chaoin, Muiríoch area it rises to 38 per cent. ‘Below the Hill’ in Cloghane/Brandon 36 per cent of houses are holiday homes. In Kerry as a whole 11 per cent of houses are holiday homes; the national figure is just three per cent.

Population statistics presented at the meeting also pointed to the effects – and weaknesses – of State investment in job creation. From the time of the 1911 Census up to the 1970s the population of the Dingle Peninsula, and Kerry generally, was in continuous decline as people were forced to migrate in search of work. Since the 1970s this pattern has been reversed in Kerry, but some areas have benefited more than others.

The population of the county was 147,707 in the 2016 Census, which was just eight per cent lower than the population recorded in the 1911 Census, partly because of State investment in job creation, particularly in the Tralee - Killarney hub. The meeting heard that the thinking at government level was that this investment would filter down to benefit surrounding areas but there is little evidence of this in the Dingle Peninsula where the population stood at 12,460 people in 2016, 42 per cent below the 21,630 people recorded in the Census of 1911. In Dingle town the population is still down 15 per cent while in Ventry, which has suffered continuous decline, the population is less than half of what it was over a century ago.

Breandán Ó Caoimh.