Kick off your cycle season with Ride Dingle

It’s time to dust off your bike and kick start your cycle season with an entry to Ride Dingle.

Registration is now open, and places are going fast for the event which takes place on April 15.

If friends are worried they won’t keep up with you, reassure them they can complete the Ride Dingle route on an electric bike.

A popular cycle around one of the country’s most westerly and scenic points, Ride Dingle also makes the perfect training event if you are planning on completing the Ring of Beara Cycle or the Ring of Kerry.

Ride Dingle has a choice of two breathtaking routes: a 55km route following the coastal road from Dingle town around Slea Head, and a 120km route that continues on from Slea Head to the Conor Pass, onto Annascaul via Camp and back to Dingle. Both take in some of the country’s most spectacular and unspoilt views of the Atlantic.

Come to Dingle with your cycling and non-cycling friends, stay a while and see all that Dingle has to offer: ancient beehive stone huts, dolphin boat trips, plus trips to the Blasket and Skellig Islands where you can see puffins nesting. Enjoy the unique, traditional west of Ireland atmosphere in Dingle’s closely knitted bars and seafood restaurants.

The event is organised by Kerry company Elite Event Management in association with Dingle Cycling Club.

“We encourage anyone with a love of cycling and the outdoors to join us in April for Ride Dingle," Oliver Kirwan from Elite Event Management said.

"The event is popular with all levels of cyclists around the country and abroad due to its unique routes that take in the Dingle Peninsula - one of the most dramatic coastal routes in the country. Dingle’s Wild Atlantic Way coastline is a fabulous place to explore on a bike, and the town is a great place to enjoy the craic after the event is over.”

Anyone who would like to register for the event can do so at www.ridedingle.com.

The ‘History, Memory and Legacy’ Conference will be held at the Siamsa Tíre Theatre and is supported by Kerry County Council and the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht Sport and Media through the Decade of Centenaries Programme 2012-2023. It is organised and presented by Bridget McAuliffe, Dr Mary McAuliffe and Owen O'Shea. It opened yesterday evening (Thursday) with a keynote address from Professor Diarmaid Ferriter of UCD, the conference will hear from a wide array of experts on how and why Kerry came to be synonymous with the worst brutality and bitternesses of the Civil War a century ago. Other keynote speeches will be delivered by Dr Leeann Lane of Dublin City University and Dr Bill Kissane of the London School of Economics. The conference programme includes a centenary concert including songs, music, poetry and drama from the Civil War period as well as a visual media exhibition drawing on first-hand accounts from the period.