Wednesday, March 6, 2024

Eagle Island - a final call to arms

Eagle Island 1970s (photo by Alex Hamilton) Note the pre-circumcised lantern. And paint on the walls.

As some of you may be aware, I've been banging on about writing a book on Eagle Island for a couple of years now. I was hoping that the long-promised Irish Lights archives might have come out online, or even the establishment of a reading room to access them but, at this stage, I suspect we'll be celebrating Ireland winning the World Cup sooner.
Anyway, the book is largely complete now. Over 120,000 words about fourteen acres of land. I still have a couple of people I need to talk to and a lot of proof-reading to do but its more or less in its final shape.



The Queen of Scotchport arriving at the south landing 1932 (photo courtesy Eamon McAndrew)

However, I am still happy to talk / correspond with anybody who might have any knowledge of the island, however small or quirky or seemingly insignificant. Topics include, but are not limited to: former keepers, tradesmen, technicians, boatmen, helicopter pilots (or anybody who may have Eagle Island anecdotes about any of them); flora (is there anything except grass, seapinks and mushrooms?) and fauna (birds, animals, insects, fish, sea mammals); WW1 and WW2; the Stientje Mensinga; the generators, fog signals, lantern, lighting, radio direction beam etc; storms of 1836, 1850, 1861, 1886, 1894, 1921, 1935, 1986, 1988 and others; boats damaged or sunk in the vicinity of the island.

Photographs and / or anecdotes relating to any of the above would also be very welcome. (I'm particularly short of photos of any of the Gallaghers, McAndrews, Kilkers, Gaughans, Williams etc who rowed from Scotchport to the island for the lighthouse reliefs.)

If you can help, or know of anyone who can help, with any of the above, please contact me at gouldingpeter@gmail.com (As I'll be selling the book on a non-profit basis, I'm afraid I can't offer a free copy in return for a photograph. Sorry!)


Photo by Richard Cummins



Saturday, February 10, 2024

The sole keeper at Roches Point

 

Roches Point 1862

Roches Point sits at the entrance of one of the largest natural harbours in the world - Cork - and, naturally enough was regarded as one of the major Irish lighthouses of the nineteenth century. It was so necessary that, in 1832, the Ballast Board decided that the light built there in 1817 was too small for the job, so they took it down, brick by brick, and shipped it off to Duncannon in county Wexford, and replaced it with a larger lighthouse.
It was, however, not so important as to waste the expense of a second keeper at the light. From 1817 to 1861, Roches Point was a one-keeper station, the sole keeper being expected to stay alert and vigilant during the 14 hours of winter darkness, to attend to all the repairs and painting and cleaning. 


Atkinson painting c. 1848

For nearly twenty of those years, the keeper at Roches Point was a guy called Bradley Sole, who had been born in Deal in Kent in 1812. Eight miles further down the coast he would have been a Dover Sole but you can't have everything. His grandfather had been a boat builder in Deal, so the sea loomed large in his life. 
Somehow, on 12th May 1836, he ended up as a rookie lightkeeper at the newly-erected lighthouses in Sligo harbour and the following year he married Anne Meredith, daughter of the local Sub-Inspector of the Constabulary. After stints in Sligo, St. John's Point (Donegal) and Balbriggan, they rocked up to Roches Point with at least two, and probably more, baby Soles in tow around 1845. They were to remain there until 1864.

A sketch of Roches Point by Ballast Board, later Irish Lights commissioner, Robert Calwell in the 1860s.

For those of you who yearn wistfully for the tranquil and romantic life of a lightkeeper, the following excerpt is taken from an inspection committee report of visiting the station in 1859, when Bradley was still in Sole charge.

The illuminating apparatus is catoptric, fixed; 9 red chimneys to seaward, 8 white towards harbour. There is only one keeper. He has 12 children. Receives £64 a year. He repeatedly asked for an assistant. There are no signals. He breaks a chimney every night. There is no water cistern. The keeper complains of the hardship of having stone floors in his dwelling house. Everything in this lighthouse appears to be in good order, all the reflectors were covered with brown paper. The accommodation is good for a small family. The keeper informed us that on one occasion a duck got into the lantern through the cowl, and , fluttering round, broke nearly all the chimneys and put out the light.
As there are great complaints of this lighthouse not showing well beyond a short distance to seaward, we think it advisable to state that we saw no symptoms of neglect anywhere. If, however, lights require careful and constant attention to prevent them burning dull, we deem it probable that where there is only one keeper, considerable intervals will elapse without any attention being paid to the lights. It is not possible that in a long winter night of fourteen hours, one keeper can keep his attention constantly alive. He will, we believe, inevitably go to sleep.

(The duck story, incidentally, is mentioned here - note the report mentions the keepers (plural) in the lighthouse)

Irish Lights inspection photograph by Sir Robert Ball at Roches Point c. 1905 (Photograph courtesy the National Library of Ireland)

By mid-1862, the family was down to nine children. Three had left, either died or fled the nest for somewhere with nice plush carpets. And there was still no sign of an assistant. The Commissioners probably decided he had enough children to keep the light in order. One child, John Bradley, born in 1851, would indeed later go on to be a keeper in his own right.
Brad was eventually transferred to Valentia in June 1864, another shore station, deemed a one-person station. There was some slight relief in April 1866, when the position of Female Assistant Keeper was created. In this, Bradley was assisted, not by wife, Anne, but by their 17-year-old daughter, Elizabeth.
The Soles finished up the lightkeeping business at Balbriggan in 1872 and, at some stage thereafter, appear to have moved up to Donaghadee in county Down. Bradley died there in 1883 aged 70 of general debility and dropsy.
Roches Point became a two-keeper station a year or two after Brad's departure.


Roches Point, around ten years ago, taken from Weaver's Point, on the western entrance to Cork harbour


Thursday, February 1, 2024

Repairs - a poem


I came across this unattributed poem in Beam 11.2 (1979-80) I'm assuming it was written by somebody in the Lighthouse Depot, at the end of his tether trying to figure out what 'the yoke at the end of the yoke' meant.

 A Tale of Repairs

The P.K. gazed with heavy frown
Upon his diesel, broken down,
And hastened to his Radio Phone
            to get repairs.
He told the Mizen of his woe,
About the fog (he had to blow)
But not a number did he know
            nor seem to care.

"The part I want," he wisely said
"is hollowed out and painted red.
I had the number in my head
            but I forget.
It holds the thingimibob in place
About an inch from the long brace
That fastens to the big main base,
            and keeps it set."

"They'll surely know the part I mean,
It broke before on this machine.
The what-you-may-call-it is between
            and just behind.
The thing that moves along the slat
About as big as an old hat
Would be, if you could smash it flat,
            I think they'll find."

The D.M. sighed and shook his head
"I don't know what he means," he said.
"We'll have to search the old back shed
            so come along.
If he would only tax his brain
So that the number he'd retain
or send the old part in, 'tis plain
            we'd not go wrong."

From end to end they searched the bins,
Clawed over castings, bolts and pins.
They skinned their fingers and their shins -
            it made them cuss.
But still they searched, with sinking heart
(They had their other work to start)
And in the last bin found the part,
            'Twas ever thus.


Friday, January 26, 2024

100 Lighthouses of the USA

This is an Irish lighthouse blog and in all the years I've been writing it, I have never featured a lighthouse from the USA or indeed from Liechtenstein, Uzbekhistan or the Central African Republic. So this is a first and probably an 'only.'
My thanks go to Carissa, one of the students at Fuller's Library in New Hampshire. They wrote to me a while ago, requesting information on lighthouse sites I would recommend to help them with a maritime project they were doing. I sent them back a list I put together and wished them well.
One of the lighthouse sites that I failed to include was this one which features a wonderful graphic of 100 lighthouses of the USA, together with a footnote about the oldest, the tallest etc. Carissa thought I would like this chart and, through one of her tutors, Mrs Skye Olley, forwarded it on to me. 
I have to admit it is a terrific graphic. I have seen only about five of the hundred and it has certainly whetted my appetite to visit some more. It is great to see all the different colours and sizes and shapes on one page, emphasising the tremendous variety of lighthouses in the States.
It also makes me wonder if a similar chart could be done for Ireland? Get Irish Lights or the Great Lighthouses of Ireland team on the job and produce a tick-off chart for all our coastal beacons. It could be great to get younger people interested in our own maritime heritage.
So again, my sincere thanks to Carissa. Hopefully, her kind act may spawn something beautiful over this side of the pond.

 




Extracts from a lighthouse diary

 


The roseate terns for which Rockabill was famous. Evidently they weren't there in the early 1900s

I came across this piece recently in the Irish Naturalist Vol 18 No.3 (1909), which I heartily recommend for a spot of light reading unless, like me, you keep getting confused by Naturalists and Naturists. The piece is prefaced by a person called R.H. Scovell who was the type of scientist who probably liked to keep his (or her) clothes on. R.H. was interested in bird migration and came across our old friend Benjamin Robert Jeffers, a lightkeeper and Open Brethren, who, with his dog, saved a bunch of people from drowning off Straw Island six years later.
Benjamin, who was the keeper at Rockabill at the time, offered to copy out extracts from his journal that mentioned birds on the 'Bill and these extracts were published in the Irish Naturalist, once B.R. had established it wasn't a nudie mag. I reproduce them in full.
Nov 10, 1906 - Our larder was replenished last night to the tune of a brace of Woodcock, a pair of lady Blackbirds, a couple of Fieldfare, a Thrush and a Starling.
Nov 14 - 19 Blackbirds, 4 Thrushes, 2 Redwing, 4 Starling and a few Larks came to grief last night.
Dec 24 - Early part of the morning, a lot of birds about Lantern, 5 Blackbirds and 6 Thrushes, also one carrier Pigeon (No. 102, Louviere, ringed in 1906, very nicely marked) came to grief. They will make a nice pie for Xmas whilst our comrade enjoys a turkey or goose ashore.


B.R. Jeffers, lightkeeper and pie-man

Feb 8, 1907 - We had rain last night, and snow and rain during the small hours of the morning: a few Redwing and Thrushes paid their respects to the light about 3am
March 15 - A number of Starling, Redwing and Blackbirds about light from 7 to 9pm.
April 14 - Over a score of birds killed last night.
April 25 - A Redstart, Goldfinch , Willow Wren and Wren caught.
May 6 - A lot of birds struck during night. 10 Corncrakes killed and a number alive on Rock during day; 9 Willow-wrens and several other birds killed also.
May 9 - A great number of birds struck during night, many were caught and let go in the morning, amongst them were a Swift and Whinchat, Wheatears &c; the following were killed:- 8 Corncrakes, 28 Whitethroats, 1 Garden Warbler, 146 Warblers (assorted), 4 Wheatears, 1 Blackstart, 1 Whinchart, about 200 killed altogether. There were a lot of crakes about the Rock during day, also a couple of Redstarts; 1 was caught... Corncrakes make very good soup and also look well when stuffed.
May 9 - Eleven Corncrakes have been stuffed by keepers during past few days.
June 12 - A Spotted Flycatcher (?) got ... and a Manx Shearwater on Friday night.
August 19 - Hawk attacked Charlie and Dick (the Goldfinches) in their cage. Dick was stretched but came to after the Hawk was driven off.
Oct 5 - Some Blackbirds and Thrushes were killed during night.
Oct 8 - Some Blackbirds, Thrushes and Larks struck lantern this morning.
Oct 9 - Blackbirds, thrushes and Larks killed during the night
Oct 10 - A few Blackbirds, Thrushes, Redwing and Larks, also a Missel Thrush and Ring Ouzel killed during the night.
Oct 15 - A large number of birds, chiefly Blackbirds, struck lantern during the night, over a score being killed, including a Missel Thrush, a few Thrushes and Redwing, and several Larks. Wind, north, 5 to 6, showery.
Oct 18 - A great number of Blackbirds flew against the lantern last night - or rather this morning from 12 to 5, also a few Thrushes, a Missel Thrush and some Starlings.Only about a dozen birds were killed by striking.
Oct 29 - Plucked a number of birds and had a grand dinner; 261 all told killed at lantern last night, including 3 Woodcock, 2 Lapwing, 84 Blackbirds, 58 Fieldfare, 11 Chaffinches and 103 Redwing and apparently a few rare ones, 1 Black Redstart.
Nov 1 - A number of birds striking but carried away by the storm; 1 Woodcock found turned inside out.
Nov 2 - About 285 birds killed at lantern last night; 1 Woodcock, 2 Lapwing, the remainder Blackbirds, Redwing, Thrushes and Fieldfare



Jan 1 1908 - A couple of Blackbirds, three Thrushes, a Starling and a Snipe came to grief last night.
March 13 - Kittiwakes arrived this morning.
April 24 - Two handsome Duck or Geese flew around the Rock several times and landed on the 'Bill,' then flew straight for the islands. Probably they are tame - black head and neck with a dark red band around breast and back, back white, tips of wings black and bill red. Sheldrake probably.
May 3 - A number of small birds struck during the night but only a few were killed - 3 Corncrakes on Rock, 2 Redstarts
May 4 - A male Redstart caught in the gas house but died in the afternoon. A Spotted Flycatcher also found disabled.
May 5 - A Turtle Dove paid us a visit today, occasionally finding his way into the garden.
May 6 - The Turtle Dove still cruises around the Rock, together with a carrier and another Pigeon.
B.R. Jeffers,
Rockabill Lighthouse, co. Dublin


R.H. Scovell makes the point that the number of blackbirds killed during migration must be quite enormous, as those killed at Rockabill must necessarily be but a tiny proportion.
A couple of other questions come to mind :-
  • What became of the corncrake stuffing industry?
  • Is this the origin of the four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie?
  • When he says corncrakes make very good soup, is he praising their culinary skills?
  • How did the woodcock get turned inside-out and did anybody think to take a photograph?


Friday, January 19, 2024

Barr Point Fog Signal - duelling poets

 

The fog-bell as taken by Sir Robert Ball on a Commissioner of Irish Lights inspection tour around 1908 when the bell was comparatively new. Photograph from CIL Album 7 in the National Library of Ireland


The Fog Bell

Gloomily through the white sea fog
   Comes the boom of the Barr Point Bell,
Telling at regular intervals
   The warning it has to tell;
It warns the mariner far at sea
   Of the crags at its rocky base,
And the helmsman hears and quickly steers
   Clear of this dangerous place.

For the white sea-mist, the grey sea-mist
   That blots out Isle Magee
Is creeping, slowly creeping
   O'er the harbour and the sea.

Short is the time since a sturdy ship
   Was rent on those cruel teeth.
And the gallant crew went down to their fates
   With the white sea spume for a wreath.
Loudly, loudly, the fog-bell tolled
   Through the gale and the murky gloom.
Not steam nor sail could fight that gale
   And the vessel was dashed to her doom.

For the white sea-mist, the grey sea-mist
   That blots out Isle Magee
Is creeping, slowly creeping
   O'er the harbour and the sea.

As I listen its gloomy monotone
   That through the night air floats,
It seems to me as though ghostly hands
   Were tolling those mournful notes:
As if those who had died in the wrath of the sea
   Had come back to earth once more
And were warning their fellow sailormen
   Away from that rock-bound shore.

The anonymous poem above appeared in the Larne Times of 15th June 1907. It was written in response to "Nemo," a columnist who had published the following poem in his Larne Times column, the previous week.

A Suggestion

Oh, hang that blethering Barr's Point Bell,
   With its mournful, monotonous note.
And hang the groans and the dismal moans
   That come from its rusty throat.
If, far, far out on the rolling deep,
   A glimpse of fog's in sight,
It starts its dolorous monotone
   And I get no sleep at night.

It gets on my nerves with its boom-boom-boom.
   It gives me the 'blues' with its croak;
When it starts to ring, I consign the thing
   To regions of sulphurous smoke.
Yes, really and truly, dear reader,
   It's enough to make one swear;
But seeing it's there for the sailorman's good,
   I suppose I must grin and bear.

But still, I have a suggestion to make,
   Though it mightn't improve the thing much.
Why don't they arrange for the Bell to play
   Light opera music as such?
And, every summer evening,
   They could make it sweetly play.
The Stranraer boat could go gracefully past
   To the tune of 'Sail Away.'

It could tinkle of 'Diamonds in Amsterdam
   By the side of the Zuyder Zee,'
Play 'Home Sweet Home' for those fortunate folk
   Who summer in Islandmagee.
It could boom to the sailors in deep-toned notes
   Of a 'Life on the Rolling Deep.'
It could hush us to rest in the eventide
   With the strains of 'Sing me to Sleep.'

The Barr Point Fog Bell was erected on the Islandmagee side of the approach to Larne Harbour on the next headland up from Ferris Point. According to a Notice to Mariners on 1st March 1905, the bell had been established already and would be rung once every ten seconds in thick or foggy weather. It was, it said, suspended from the top of an open iron framework 40 feet high. Judging by the photo at the top of the page, it doesn't look six keepers high to me!
Even by 1906 (Londonderry Sentinel 23rd June) it was already facing calls to have it moved to Skernaghan Point (the next headland up) on the grounds that "its present position is unsuitable, as the sound is carried in the wrong direction, and does not go far enough out to sea."
However, the fog-bell persevered until the end of 1931, when it was replaced by the old fog-gun from Rue Point on Rathlin Island, much to the local population's dismay. As the Larne Times commented, "It is well to remember that there were also many complaints when the 'mournful bell' was installed and that constant familiarity deadened the first distaste."


The present-day fog-signal station at Barr Point, discontinued since 2006, flanked by two sultry Maidens

Friday, January 12, 2024

The Leverets, Galway Bay

The much overlooked Leverets lighthouse on the approach to the docks in Galway (photograph Marinas.com)

I suppose its only natural that lighthouses that never had a keeper should fall under the radar somewhat. Ardnakinna, Rosslare Copper Point and the Leverets don't really have that folk memory that allows them to gain kudos in the lighthouse world, which is a shame because Leverets, for one, is quite an interesting structure.
For a start, the name is somewhat strange. People who do pub quizzes (do they still exist in the era of the mobile phone?) will know that a leveret is a young hare, with no obvious connection to lighthouse. But the Leverets are two rocks that the lighthouse is built on and the nearby slightly larger land masses are called Hare Island and Rabbit Island.
With the development of Galway and particularly the city shoreline in the 1950s and 1960s, the light on Mutton Island, which previously had marked the entrance to the docks (as well as warning away from nearby rocks) was often swamped by the bright city lights, much like Ferris Point at Larne being subsumed by the nearby power station. It was felt that Mutton Lighthouse's days were numbered and a new light, out in the bay was needed.


Photo from the worldoflighthouses.net

Work on the new light began in 1969 and the light was established at the end of September that year. Not only did it mark the Leveret rocks but it also indicated where the final turn should come on the entry to the docks. It was actually constructed in Galway docks and towed out to the location (a la Kish!!) where divers had prepared the base. It was then anchored firmly to the base.


City Tribune 19th June 1985

 
Trabas Online List of Lights

There was, however, one rather distressing consequence of the building of the lighthouse.  For four years prior to the lighthouse's construction, Galway had its very own Fungie, who used to entertain the population with its acrobatic tricks. Flipper - as it was unimaginatively named - was a one-ton, 12-foot long, silver-grey porpoise whose playful antics included befriending the UK's Ambassador to Ireland, who liked fishing in Galway Bay, knocking cement bags off pontoons and fouling ropes. 
Unfortunately, due to his habit of habitually nudging the divers working on the base of the new lighthouse and with the possibility of him fouling their airlines, it was decided Flipper would have to be culled. A horrified UK Ambassador pleaded for mercy and it was decided to simply frighten him away with small explosives (the dolphin, not the ambassador) However, a couple of days after this resolution was agreed upon, the headless body of Flipper was found attached to a rope and floating thirty yards to the west of the lighthouse. The construction company denied all knowledge.


Sensitive headline from the Trib (Irish Newspaper Archive)

"When the sun goes down on Galway Bay in the near future, it will be replaced by a bright new light - and it won't be the moon rising over Claddagh." So began the Connacht Sentinel article in September 1969, a few days prior to the establishment of the light. It went on to explain that the lighthouse would be fitted with special light-sensitive plates and, as soon as the light from the sun dropped below a certain intensity, the light would automatically spring into action. Fog would likewise trigger the light. It was not however mentioned how the civil authorities had managed to stop the moon rising over Claddagh.
It was, added the Irish Independent, the first lighthouse in Irish waters to incorporate this system.


From This is Galway

Despite the suggestion that the Leverets was replacing the Mutton Island light, the two co-existed serenely for eight years before the latter was turned off in 1977. It was in fact replaced by a new system of beacons and buoys that were more visible from seaward.
In 1985, the Leverets went solar after a lot of costly niggles with the acetylene. The light kept going out in the middle of the night and a new cannister had to be filled up in Dublin and transported down. Both the Leverets and the shoreline Renmore light were converted to solar panels at a cost of £7,000 with each battery pack having a shelf life of between five and ten years.