A look into the future at Dingle Hub workshop

A WORKSHOP organised by Dingle Hub and facilitated by an Amsterdam-based Lispole man, which took place last weekend, brought people together online to explore a vision of West Kerry in 2030.

People from throughout the community joined in the online gathering which ran for four days and was facilitated by Tom Power from Graigue, Lispole, who works with Amsterdam based design company ‘Imagination of Things’.

The weekend workshop took place against the backdrop of an expected decline of 70 per cent in tourism activity in 2020, according to a report by Kerry County Council. Tom Power, who works as a Creative Strategist explained that the break caused by COVID -19 coupled with the increased use of online meeting technology in the community presented the opportunity to organise a remote workshop.

“Our aim was twofold, to get disparate groups/ initiatives on the peninsula in one space and to help spark their imagination around the topic of the Dingle Peninsula in 2030... I hope we managed to start some sparks of initiative,” he said.

The weekend was about taking a different tack, to take a break from the facts and figures and to look forward, according to Dingle Hub Manager Deirdre de Bhailís. “Looking forward to 2030, if we were the best we could be, what would that look like,” she said.

Some of the core ideas to come out of the weekend included local applications for electric vehicles and other renewable resources, educational opportunities and the development of sensory gardens, creating local markets for local farm and seafood produce as well as creating an annual ‘Dingle Day’ holiday. The gathering also discussed the possibility of adding a cultural addendum to the Treaty of Dingle which has its 500th anniversary in 2029.

The next step is to share the plans put forward at the onling workshop with a larger group of people and the organisers plan to do this before the end of the summer.

An overwhelming level of interest in a call from Dingle Hub for people to take part in the workshop meant that numbers had to be limited. “I was overwhelmed with the level of interest and the response to the call... The number attending the workshop was capped at 20 people leaving the people in the Hub the difficult task of selecting a panel of people who represented a range of ages, a geographical spread and every sector in West Kerry,” said Deirdre.

The workshop and follow-up activities are sponsored by the partners in the Dingle 2030 project Dingle Hub, MaREI, NEWKD as well as ESB Networks. Further information on the entire project is available at the website www.dinglepeninsula2030.com