Pete's Irish Lighthouses

  According to one definition of an island, there are 281 of the little buggers around the coast of Ireland, which can be split up into three categories - those that have a resident population; those that have never had a population; and those that once had a population but now have one no longer. To me, all islands are magical places, each with their own distinct identity, and I would love to be an islander now, leaning on the pier rail and telling tall tales to the tourists that visit. The saddest islands are the ones whose resident population has left - some of the Blaskets, Scattery, several islands at the mouth of the Fergus, many islands in Clew Bay, the Inishkeas, Inishmurray, Gola, Inishsirrer and Inishtrahull, to name but a few. The latter, Inishtrahull, Ireland's most northerly island, has always fascinated me and, visiting for the first time last year, dispels the myth that you should never meet your heroes. It is an incredible island that changes with the weather and th...

Galley Head light c.1906 This poem, by an Irish  emigr é,  was sent by the author's daughter, Eileen McGowan, to the Museum of the O'Connell Schools in North Richmond Street, many, many years ago, accompanied by a note that said:  We were living at 194, Richmond Terrace, Staten Island, at the time this poem was written, so it is safe to say it was one of Papa's last compositions. We moved to St. George in 1902 and Papa was waked there in 1915. He was forever fascinated by the way the Robbin's Reef lighthouse and the Statue of Liberty light blinked and shone into his bedroom window. Our home was on the Shore Road and we faced the waters of Kill von Kull Straights and the New York Bay. Lying in his bed, he could easily see the lighthouse and Statue, just as though they were in his own front yard. The first Fastnet My Lighthouse Where I grew up on Ardagh’s Heights, I’d see the bright, revolving lights Of Fastnet Rock and Galley Head That round about their brilliance shed T...

  There are times, when researching local maritime history, when you come across a seemingly innocuous building, or an old slipway, or a weir and it spirals out of all control, opening up avenues that you'd love to have the time to pursue.  The iconic Red Hut on the Newry River (aka the Clanrye River) is a perfect example. Basically its just a corrugated iron shed, painted an unusual rusty colour almost on the border between county Down and county Louth, the Republic and the North of Ireland, the EU and the UK. As far as I can see, it has no protected status at all. Back in the 1830s, the Newry Navigation Company, eager to get decent sized ships up to Newry and beyond, were keen to enlarge the Newry Ship Canal, a three-and-a-half mile stretch of water that linked Newry to Carlingford Lough. The canal stopped short of the lough itself with a small portion uncanalised (if that's a word) around Narrow Water. In order to maintain this small stretch, the river was dredged and the m...

A lot of people are calling it grossly unfair but Wicklow town (Irish: Cill  Mhantáin or 'Wickler')  is getting another lighthouse.  Not content with having three beautiful specimens on Wickler Head and a very chic lighthouse, complete with new bonnet, on the pier, a fifth pharological building is being erected just south of the Black Castle by the harbour. There won't be any shipwrecks for want of a light on this part of the coastline anyway. I bet they're bullin' down in Arkler, a town famous for its lack of lighthouses unless you count that pole on a corrugated iron shed at the end of the Roadstone jetty . This post could really be subtitled 'How to build a lighthouse,' if you're one of those people who learns how to do exciting new things, like changing a hoover bag or putting the clock forward an hour in your car, from YouTube videos. Ikea have a range of flat-pack lighthouses in stock. Open the boxes, heeding the no-knives symbol and using your fin...

It may come as a surprise to some (as it did to me) to learn that there has been a beacon on the Angus Rock for over 300 years. It was back in 1715 that the brig, Eagle's Wing, got caught in a storm at the entrance of the lough and was blown onshore on the Angus Rock. 62 people lost their lives and, as a result, a beacon was built on the offending rock in 1720. It was 30 feet tall, painted white and lacked a light. With the strong currents and narrow passages of reasonable depth, accessing Strangford Lough could be extremely dangerous for sailing ships, and wrecks were legion. Ships could not negotiate the passage to the west of the rock and the channel to the east was barely 300m wide. A deputation of traders called for the tower to be lit in 1839 to no avail. It has been suggested that merchants and shipowners from Belfast, eager to protect their own interests, had a hand in defeating the motion. In 1845, the Ballast Board announced that they were placing a 40-foot unlit beacon ...

  As some of you will know, I started to write a book on Eagle Island several years ago. Many people gave generously of their time to help me and the book was to all intents and purposes, finished by the autumn of 2023.  That was the fun bit.  I hawked it around the usual publishers. Those who answered all agreed it was 'far too long.' So, no bother, I decided to self-publish. I got quite a shock, it being several years since the publishing of When the Light Goes Out to realise just how much printing and postage costs had risen in the intervening years. Nobody was going to buy a book by an amateur for the €30+ it would cost me to print it. Unless I pared it down. I started to do this, losing many of the beautiful photos I had been sent, losing whole chapters from shipwrecks to butterflies, but it was a hard slog as the formatting of the whole book changes every time you change a Word doc. In addition, I felt the book was becoming emasculated, just like the lighthouse of ...

Photo Damien Mcaleenan In early July 1851, a man called Mr Leslie, who was apparently the superintendent for the boring of the tunnel under the barracks, for the Great Southern and Western Railway Company - whatever that meant - purchased a diminutive little screw steamer called Witch . The boat, with a registered weight of only eight tons, had been built in Bristol and was intended to ply a coastal trade around the villages near Queenstown (Cobh) in Cork harbour. On 11th July, the Witch left Bristol in the hands of Mr Leslie and three seamen and that evening put into Swansea. The following morning, she left Swansea and reached Milford harbour. The next morning, the 13th, she left Milford with the intention of crossing over the Irish Sea but, upon sighting the coastline, a gale sprang up and they decided to head for Waterford. The wind however, which was coming from the northwest, had other ideas and blew her away from the harbour mouth back towards the Tuskar Rock off the southeast...

Warren Point (Photo by Chris Newman) Warrenpoint co. Down is a small town on the northern shore of Carlingford Lough and has no further involvement with this article. Warren Point co. Donegal, on the other hand, is not even a small village. It is merely the point where a small headland hits the Foyle estuary. It is situated alongside the fairway of the 12th hole of a golf course and the only building on it is a small lighthouse. In the 1850s, the Londonderry Port and Harbour Commissioners, as was, finally got their act together and started erecting lights from the city all the way up to the mouth of the Foyle estuary. Well, almost to its mouth. The two Inishowen lights were deemed to be sea lights and thus under the jurisdiction of the Dublin Ballast Board but the next light southwards, 2.4kms (1.5 miles) upriver, Warren Point, was at the full extent of the Commissioners' jurisdiction. A lighthouse was built here in 1861 to provide a link in the chain between Inishowen and Redcastl...

Blacksod lighthouse (photo Richard Cummins) The following unnoteworthy correspondence is taken from the War and Raids collection at UCD and rivals the 'Small earthquake in Chile . Not many dead' headline in the 'Move on, nothing to see here' category. Irish Lights Office Dublin 14th June 1922 To PK, Blacksod, You are to forward a special report of the incident mentioned in your Journal for the 19th May, stating that the Station had been raided by a party of men, some armed; and explain your apparent omission to do so in the first instance,                                                                                      Secretary Blacksod when it was painted white! Sir, I respectfully beg to report that this Station was raided on the 19th May at 2.30am by a party of about ...