Pete's Irish Lighthouses

This, sadly, is the best picture I could come up with (from one of the early Beam magazines) of the MV Valonia , which served in Irish Lights from 1950. This diesel-engined motor vessel was purchased from Trinity House as a replacement for the Nabro , which had served as relief vessel for lighthouses on the Cork and Kerry coasts. Captain J. Oscar O'Hehir, formally Captain of the Granuaile   (the first one), was chosen to be her first skipper.  Other skippers during her ten-year tenure included Captain J. Coma, Captain Dermot E. Cormack, tragically drowned at Castletownbere in 1954, the exotically-named Captain Plato Harrison and Captain Herbert Greenlee. Four years before the Valonia was sold to David MacBrayne, the Hebridean ferry company, a mysterious incident occurred on board the vessel, in September 1958. The story was related in the Irish Lights staff magazine, date unknown. The first nine words of the report, in particular, made my hair stand on end. I am still trying...

The lighthouse tender Rose in the storehouse at Scotchport (courtesy Sean Walker) Scotchport, on the Mullet peninsula in county Mayo, is kind of off the beaten track. It is also off the unbeaten track. There is so little there that it doesn't even appear on Google maps. Well, it does, but under the name " Wavesweeper Sea Adventures, " which may well be the Irish for Scotchport but is more likely the coastal location for a family tourism enterprise based in Belmullet. It isn't really a place that you would pass by accident. Coming from Belmullet, you go through the village of Corclough West and continue until you hit the coast. The road to your right leads to  Dún na mBó (where there is a blowhole)  and the Eagle Island viewing point. The road to the left passes Scotchport and curls back around to Termoncarragh Bird Reserve and graveyard, which, if either was your destination, would have been more easily accessible from Corclough West. The road to Scotchport Scotchpor...

Haulbowline lighthouse (photographs by Jane Rankin) My son, when he was a young boy, used to say things like " Imagine if that bridge fell down" while we were going under it, or "Imagine if that tower block fell down" as we were driving by. (I'm assuming he doesn't still say it but I may be wrong) Looking at the beautiful Jane Rankin pictures on this page of Haulbowline lighthouse at the entrance to Carlingford Lough, I can't help thinking, "Imagine if that lantern fell down." It would certainly take the look off it. Of course, lighthouse lanterns are not in the habit of falling into the sea, so such a scenario is extremely unlikely. Or is it? Fellow lighthouse enthusiast Lee Maginnis lives nearby and has a great affinity for this particular lighthouse. He recently noticed that, just below the lantern, a large crack has started to appear in the stonework. (It is more noticeable in the photograph below where it is front on) God bless his eyes...

  This is Ross Coastguard Station situated on a wonderfully elevated site overlooking the approaches to Killala in north Mayo. The photograph comes from the Wynne collection in the NLI, who estimate the date as around 1880. Wynne himself died in 1893. The station was built in 1864 but seems to have replaced an older station a short distance away. With many islands at the entrance to Killala, it was an ideal spot for the coastguards to set up shop and keep an eye on the local trade. Killala Bay with the CGS roughly in the middle 1st edition OS map, showing the original angular coastguard station on the western side of the peninsula. When the new station was built in 1864, it moved to the eastern side of the peninsula and was a lot rectangularer, which is my first ever use of that rather unpronounceable word. The station was either designed by, or the design was approved by, a guy called Enoch Trevor Owen, Assistant Architect to the Board of Public Works. The plans below are on the N...

  It has been a good while since we were able to have a pint in a 'Lighthouse' pub. On one of the few nice days we had on our recent visit to the area, we just happened to chance upon this large and spacious and practically empty pub in the village of Inver, across Broadhaven Bbay from Ballyglass lighthouse, which isn't visible from the pub. At the risk of sounding like the Pub Spy guy I remember from the Sunday World forty years ago, it was a lovely creamy pint and a very affable and friendly barman who served it. Other lighthouse pubs to be found on this site include Fanad Bull Rock I would also swear that I had posted up a picture of lighthouse pubs at Howth and Loop Head but do you think I can find them? There is also Lavelle's Eagle Bar at Corclough on the Mullet penisula. Doesn't have 'Lighthouse' in the name, but obviously called after nearby Eagle Island, on which the only buildings are the two lighthouses.

  So there we were, sitting in Teach John Joe's in Eachleim near the foot of the Mullet peninsula, enjoying the midsummer fire and the creamy pints, when the proprietor, who we shall call John (because that's his name), an avid golfer, got a call inviting him to play a round of golf at the world-famous Old Head of Kinsale golf course.  He was unsure what to do. His clubs were up the road at Carne, the weather forecast was not promising and it would mean getting up at silly o'clock for the five-hour drive down the N17 with its unique stone walls and green grass. On the other hand, such an opportunity doesn't cross a golfer's path every day and in no time at all, he had left one of the locals in charge of pouring the pints and was haring up the road for his clubs. "Tell you what you can do for me," I said, when he arrived back, and explained to him about the old lighthouse and its inaccessibility to non-golfers. I had some previous photos of the really old 1...

  The above photograph was sent to me by Andrew Doherty, of Waterford Harbour Tides and Tales fame, and evoked a very strange sense of Deja-vu in me. I probably haven't thought about it in over 55 years but when I was very small, there was an object very like it in our house. I think it was black and the top unscrewed and then one of the adults did something and there was a smell of paraffin and the top was screwed on again and we had a light. Why we had it, I don't know, nor what became of it. As I said, I've never thought about it until now. The lamp and the plaque above are on the wall of the sailing club in Dungarvan. As it says, it was exhibited at Wyse Point, one of two white leading lights there. From the British Islands Pilot Guide 1917 , it seems that these fixed lights led ships through the channel from the Pool. Then two fixed red lights led up to the green light on the bridge at Dungarvan. I'm hopeful this will mean something to somebody. Lamplighters were ...