Pete's Irish Lighthouses

Currently spending two weeks near Blacksod lighthouse in county Mayo, a view of Black Rock from the front of the house and we're walking every inch of the fantastic white beaches of the Mullet peninsula. Two days ago, we happened to chance on Ballyglass lighthouse on beautiful Broadhaven Bay (no idea how we got there, just turned a corner and there we were, totally unexpectedly).  The last time I was there was ten years ago , less than an hour before  I wrote off the car near Crossmolina after a blow-out. The keeper's cottage, I noted, seemed to be in a state of disrepair and news since confirmed that it was on a definite downward trajectory. Writing in The Irish Builder in 1880, John Swan Sloane who, by that time, had been pensioned off from his position of Chief Engineer of Irish Lights much to his disgust, wrote of the loneliness of the station, in words that would probably not go down too well today!!: - So we roll up to Gubacashel Point aka Broadhaven lighthouse aka Bally...

  Ballagh Rocks from nearby Calf Island Over two months since we spent a week on beautiful Arranmore Island off the coast of Donegal, its about time I wrote about the two lighthouses in that part of the world. The first of these that the visitor encounters is Ballagh Rocks, a lighthouse since 1982, though a beacon has stood on the treacherous rock since 1875. As most people live on the sheltered eastern side of the island, and as practically every house has a sea view, the Ballagh Rocks, much more than the main Arranmore Island lighthouse, is a very familiar sight to islanders and visitors alight. It was indeed the first thing I looked for on pulling back the curtains in our own rented accommodation, although my wife, as usual, dismissed it as 'not a real lighthouse.'. Rather like Long Island in county Cork, the construction of a beacon at that point was a long time coming about. The rocks sit in the middle of the main northern channel between Arranmore Island and the mainland ...