Pete's Irish Lighthouses

The Maidens light, county Antrim This is a poem wot I wrote many years ago and which I actually set to music a few years ago. However, I am no Donnacha O'Laoghaire either vocally or on the geetar, so I'll reproduce the poem without the musical violation. Incidentally, there is, nor ever was, a lighthouse off Tremaine, nor any village of that name, that I am aware of and the events only happened in my morbid imagination. Eeragh lighthouse, the Aran Islands Come hear my strange story, repulsive and gory, about one who was ruthlessly slain. It happened, you see, back in 1903 on the lighthouse two miles off Tremaine. The storm lashed the bay on that terrible day, clouds darkened the sea like a stain. And when evening fell, it became black as hell, with no beam from the light off Tremaine. By eleven o’clock, there were crowds on the dock, all willing the tempest to wane. But the winds from the north meant no boat could set forth for the lighthouse two miles off Tremaine. Still no li...

Edward McCarron, author of 'Life in Donegal' was a keeper at Dundalk, Arranmore, Inishtrahull, Tearaght, and others from the 1870s I came across this poem by somebody called A.M.C.(a strange name with very few letters in it?) in the Cork Examiner of 5th November 1892. Imaginatively called ' The Lighthouse Keepers,' its message is basically to appreciate the lightkeeper while he is around, for there would be carnage if he ever stopped lighting his lamps. Francis James Ryan and Mary nee Redmond,  married in 1867, and then circumnavigated the country. Far away on a rocky coast where great waves dash and roar, And vessels passing to and fro keep off the dreaded shore: The lighthouse stands, silent and cold, in solemn loneliness: Towering far above the sea, and the ocean's wild caress. William Landers, a devout Methodist, served at Clare Island and Inishgort for many years in the mid-1800s Ever and ever the breakers crash; ever the seabirds fly, Mingling the noise of t...