Dingle locals remember Fungie as hopes of finding dolphins fade

TOUR OPERATORS AND locals have reacted with dismay as hopes continue to fade in the search for Fungie off the coast of Dingle, Co Kerry.

Boats and a team of divers have searched for the dolphin after it disappeared last week.

The dolphin has been a part of the fabric of Dingle since 1983, after it arrived in port and never left.

Fungie helped establish the Dingle Peninsula as a tourist destination, creating many jobs for the local population and attracting millions of tourists over the years.

It was named the oldest lone dolphin in the world by Guinness World Records last year and the local tourism industry is often filled with boat trips to see it.

Fears are mounting that Fungie is dead or gone with a pod of other dolphins, and locals fondly remember him a week since his last sighting.

“When Fungie appeared here in 1983, there was no tourism – emigration was plentiful, fishing was threatened and there were no jobs,” said Caroline Boland of the Dingle Peninsula Tourism Alliance.

“Fungie never left and quickly became part of the community.

“It was only when the Fungie story got out that people started coming in and asking to go see the dolphin, and the boat trips began.

“Fungie is like a family to everyone in Dingle and people are devastated by his absence, it is very crude to talk about him and people are starting to cry.

“Fungie lived at the mouth of the harbor and brought a wonderful spirit to the landscape and culture here. It created extra magic and the community embraced it.

“You cannot appreciate how he has inspired us all and brought a magical experience to the bay.”

‘A great loss’

Marine biologist and director of the Dingle Oceanworld Aquarium, Dr. Kevin Flannery, said they hope he’s still alive.

“It has been phenomenal for the local economy and transformed the opinions of the millions of people who have visited here,” he said.

“The families, teenagers and children who have visited us over the years realized that the sea is a place with beautiful and happy creatures, like him, that it is not a place to throw plastic or a place to harvest.

“It will be a great loss financially – he was part of the family and anyone who left the port or anyone who went for a walk would see him for the last 37 years.”

Dingle resident Nuala Moore has been swimming in the harbor and with Fungie since she was a child.

“The port is my pool where I train and prepare for all my big baths and I go there three or four times a week,” he said.

“For me, Fungie is an integral part of my pool. I love that it is there as a constant presence of joy in the water.

“I would hope that he was somewhere else and would come back. There will surely be a gap in people’s lives. “