Dingle
Exploring Dingle Bay From a Different Perspective
Dingle Bay is located in County Kerry in the south west of Ireland. The national seabed mapping programme, INFOMAR, has been mapping its hydrography in stages over the past decade. This story map highlights some of the extraordinary underwater features that have been captured.
INFOMAR is a DCCAE funded joint programme between the Geological Survey Ireland and the Marine Institute.
Hydrographic Surveying
INFOMAR uses ship-borne multibeam echosounders (MBES) to map the seabed. The MBES transducer is mounted to the hull of the survey vessel. It emits a fan of soundwaves which reflect off of the seabed. The returning echoes are recorded and converted into depth values.
Schematic of RV Celtic Voyager illustrating MBES data acquisition.
The high resolution acoustic imagery acquired displays bathymetry (depth) and seafloor geology.
Bathymetry and depth contours in Dingle Bay.
Shaded relief imagery highlighting rock outcrops.
Additional information on the hardness of the seabed is also provided by the MBES data. These data are known as "backscatter" and combined with sediment sample data are used to classifiy different types of sediment on the seabed.
Backscatter image showing different acoustic classes corresponding to different sediment categories.
Seabed classification map showing rock and sediment classes present in Dingle Bay.
The Irish National Seabed Survey pioneered the mapping of our extensive offshore waters producing the Real Map of Ireland . Since 2006, INFOMAR has used a fleet of vessels to map our inshore waters (<200 m).
INFOMAR's RV Keary, RV Lir, RV Geo and RV Mallet en route to survey site.
All bathymetry, backscatter and seabed classification data and maps are freely available for download from https://www.infomar.ie/
Shipwrecks
During the course of mapping the seabed, numerous shipwrecks have been discovered and known shipwrecks have been remapped at a higher resolution. INFOMAR, in conjunction with the Underwater Archaeology Unit, maintains a detailed geodatabase and webviewer for over 300 wrecks it has surveyed. The database provides information on location, wreck condition and water depth. It also has links to 3D models of some of the more famous shipwrecks and factsheets on the vessel's history.
Two of the most famous shipwrecks in Dingle Bay are the SS Manchester Merchant and a Spanish Armada ship, the Santa Maria de la Rosa.
Manchester Merchant
The SS Manchester Merchant was a British cargo steamship which accidentally caught fire off the south west Irish coast on January 12th, 1903. It was en route from New Orleans to Manchester with a cargo of 13,000 bales of cotton. The vessel sought refuge in Dingle Bay and dropped anchor near the entrance to Castlemaine Harbour. With efforts to fight the fire failing, most of the crew took to the lifeboats leaving the master and a handful of crew to scuttle the ship in shallow water on January 15th.
The shipwreck has recently been remapped by INFOMAR's RV Keary. The three large boilers can clearly be seen at the centre of the acoustic image. The single shaft can be delineated towards the bow and stern. The wreck was declared unsalvageable shortly after sinking. Its structure has since deteriorated. The sides of the vessel have collapsed and lie by its side on the seabed.
Final resting place of the Manchester Merchant.
Schematic representation of the stages in the decomposition of a shipwreck:
Phase 1: Ship gets damaged.
Phase 2: Sides of ship begin to collapse.
Phase 3: Further collapse of sides and deterioration of all super structures.
Phase 4: Boilers and shaft remain. These are the dominant features visible on the INFOMAR MBES imagery.
Santa Maria de la Rosa
The Santa Maria de la Rosa was part of the Spanish Armada. The "Armada" refers to the Spanish fleet assembled to invade England in 1588. The mission was unsuccessful. During the manoeuvre to escape back to Spain, the Armada rounded the north of Scotland and the Atlantic coast of Ireland. The fleet was scattered and more than twenty ships were wrecked off the western Irish coast. On September 21st, 1588, the Santa Maria reached Blasket Sound on the south west coast of Ireland. She tried to find shelter from a storm behind The Great Blasket Island. She lost her anchor, ran on an underwater reef (Stromboli) and sank.
Final resting place of the Santa Maria de la Rosa in the Blasket Sound, located between Great Blasket Island and the Dingle Peninsula.
During an expedition in 1968, the wrecksite was found. The discovery of two pewter plates with the name "Matute" under the rim confirmed the wreck as being the Santa Maria. A number of cannonballs were found. These artefacts and other antiquites salvaged from other Spanish Armada wrecks are on display at the Ulster Museum .
The customised plate of Captain Francisco Ruiz Matute, captain of the guard on the Santa Maria de la Rosa.
Shipwrecks act as an artificial reef that provides a habitat for coral and other sea creatures.
The Blaskets
The Blasket Islands are a group of islands to the west of the Dingle Peninsula. They consist of The Great Blasket Island (An Blascaod Mór), Beginish (Beiginis), Inishnabro (Inis na Bró), Inishvickillane (Inis Mhic Uileáin), Inishtooskert (Inis Tuaisceart), and Tearaght Island (An Tiaracht).
Sunset at The Blasket Islands.
The site is a Special Area of Conservation (SAC) due to the presence of extensive reef habitat (protected under Annex I of the EU Habitats Directive).
Rocky reefs surround the Blasket archipelago west of Dingle Peninsula.
One of the largest populations of grey seal (listed on Annex II of the EU Habitats Directive) breed on the beaches and caves on several of the islands.
Grey Seal
The site supports one of the most important seabird colonies in the country. The largest colony of storm petrel surveyed in the world to date is on Inistooskert.
Storm Petrel
The Great Blasket Island
The Great Blasket Island is the most famous of the Blaskets. It is approximately 4 miles long by 0.5 miles wide and is home to an abundance of wildlife and fauna.
Cetaceans (whales and dolphins) regularly observed in the surrounding waters include common dolphin, bottlenose dolphin, Risso’s dolphin, killer whale, humpback whale and minke whale.
Humpback whale diving deep at The Great Blasket Island.
Basking sharks are the biggest fish in the North Atlantic, and the second largest in the world. In spring and early summer these huge plankton-feeders arrive in significant numbers around the Irish coast. The waters off The Great Blasket Island are one of the best places in Europe to spot them.
Basking shark looking for plankton.
An Tiaracht
An Tiaracht (Tearaght Island) is the westernmost island off the Irish coast. It rises dramatically out of the sea like a pyramid and could easily be mistaken for the more famous Skellig Michael.
A lighthouse was built there in 1870. Once established, a funicular railway, the steepest in Europe, was built to transport provisions to the lighthouse keepers.
The most westerly lighthouse in Europe.
The lighthouse was automated in 1988 and is maintained today by the Commissioner of Irish Lights. Access to the lighthouse is by helicopter, subsequently the inclined railway was decommissioned.
The new light Tearaght Island Lighthouse with a range of 19 nautical miles.
Valentia Island
Valentia Island lies on the south side of Dingle Bay. Over 150 years ago, the first successful transatlantic telegraph cable was laid between Valentia Island and Heart's Content in Newfoundland, Canada.
Transatlantic Cable
One of the 19th century's great technological achievements was to lay a telegraphic cable beneath the Atlantic, allowing messages to speed back and forth between North America and Europe in minutes, rather than ten or twelve days by steamer.
A number of attempts were made to lay the cable. A first attempt in 1858, led by Cyrus W. Field, was initially successful but failed after three weeks. On July 27th, 1866, the cables were finally laid and nineteenth century telecommunications between Europe and North America commenced.
Cyrus W. Field
The Valentia telegraph station went into operation immediately. During the 1900's, it employed over 40 telegraph workers. In 1966, after one hundred years of operation, the station finally closed its doors.
Valentia telegraph station
The Great Eastern, the largest ship of its day, completed the laying of over 1600 nautical miles of cable.
The Great Eastern
Dingle's most famous resident was a bottlenose dolphin called Fungie. He was first sighted in Dingle Harbour in 1983 and spent the next 37 years interacting playfully with the many visitors that came to see him. Fungie was instrumental in bringing Dingle's tourism to life. But more importantly, he helped educate people about the wider marine world.
Fungie: for almost four decades the beloved dolphin enthralled locals and tourists.
In 2019, Fungie was named as the oldest solitary dolphin in the world by Guinness World Records.
Credits
Special thanks to Richard Creagh and Blasket Island Marine Eco Tours for their incredible photographs of the Blasket Islands and associated marine wildlife.
Credit to Hervé Marsaud and Pascal Hénaff for their schematic on shipwrecks and to Winifred Glover for imagery of Spanish Armada antiquities.
A word of thanks to the Commissioner of Irish Lights for providing information on lighthouses and to Galway Bay Sub Aqua Club for underwater photographs.
Data Sources:
- INFOMAR Website https://www.infomar.ie/
- 60 Épaves en Vendée et Charente-Maritime. Marsaud, H and Pascal Hénaff, P. (2011).
- Galway Bay Sub Aqua Club https://www.galwaysubaquaclub.com/
- Exploring the Spanish Armada. Glover, W. (2000).
- Richard Creagh Photography https://www.richardcreagh.com/
- Blasket Islands Eco Marine Tours https://www.marinetours.ie/
- Irish Sea Pictures https://irelandseapictures.com/
- Commissioner of Irish Lights https://www.irishlights.ie/
- Valentia Transatlantic Cable Foundation https://valentiacable.com/
