The Lighthouse Keeper's Wife by June O'Sullivan

 

The old Lower Skellig lighthouse c. 1903 (courtesy NLI)

There is a line in Compton McKenzie's novel The Lunatic Republic in which an astronaut is trying to explain literary fiction to the moon's inhabitants. But why would you want to read about things that never happened? came the unanwerable rejoinder.
I am afraid I read very little fiction, though when I do, I am normally gripped from start to finish. But when I saw that the Lighthouse Keeper's Wife, the debut novel by June O'Sullivan, recounts the tragic events at Skellig Michael lighthouse in the late 1860s, I was intrigued, not least because I had done a lot of research on the Callaghan family for When the light goes out.
So I bought it, started it and then life got in the way and I stopped about a quarter way through. It was not until a four-hour downpour on Inishturk last Saturday that I finished it. 
This is not a review of the book. For a start, I am not qualified to review fiction. My one attempt at writing a novel was a disaster. Secondly, I was very conscious, before I'd even opened it, that I would be minutely searching for inconsistencies and incomplete research, which would not be at all fair to Ms O'Sullivan.
But I give my thoughts on the book, from my very jaundiced perspective.

The story, as mentioned, is that of William and Kate Callaghan, who move to Skellig Michael off the coast of Kerry, when William is appointed PK there.  Their third child Mary Anne is born there but their two young boys, William and Patrick, both die and are buried up at the monastery (the gravestone, probably the most westerly in Europe (excluding Iceland and the Azores) is still visible) William senior writes an impassioned letter to the board of Irish Lights asking to be removed from the island as he has buried two sons and is fearful for the life of his daughter. The Board complies.

Around these bare facts, June O'Sullivan has woven a tale that is both compelling and believable and to be fair, her research has been top-notch. She shaves the number of lighthouse stations from two to one deliberately, to enhance the isolation of the family when joined by the assistant keeper and his wife, who are both weird and sinister. A man called Jeremiah runs the lighthouse tender to and from the island and Jeremiah Trant, who along with his son John later became a lightkeeper, used to run the tender, albeit a couple of decades later than the events in the book. The names of the main protagonists are changed too, out of deference to the fact that this was an actual family. 

The old lower light c. 1960 (courtesy Shay Farrell)

The plot itself is very cleverly done, using the facts as we know them. There are no death certs for the Callaghan children and so the author has the freedom there to choose the deaths of the Carthy children. But what shines out is the life of the keepers on an isolated rock, the claustrophobia, the weather, the tension within the family and between the families. It is something people like me, who research lightkeepers don't truly appreciate. The antagonism between the families even has an echo in reality as one keeper called John McKenna was actually dismissed around the same time for beating up a keeper at the upper lighthouse.
I have to say I enjoyed the book immensely and it deserves the acclaim it has received. My one reservation is that I thought the ending was a little Disneyesque with everything turning out right and the baddies getting their comeuppance very neatly. Of course, with the tragedies that lay in store for the Callaghan family, there's ample scope for a sequel!
And did I spot any obvious factual errors? Well, not in the book itself, which was, as I said, very well researched. But in the author's note at the back, she quotes Des Lavelle in wondering whether Eliza's Corner on Skellig Michael was named after Eliza Callaghan, mother of Patrick and William (their mother was actually Kate Callaghan)
June also says she has taken liberties with the frequent visits to Skellig Michael by Jeremiah, in the lighthouse tender, which she says only visited twice a year. In fact the 'two-visits-a-year' tender refers to the large Irish Lights tenders who would deliver bulky items like water and oil twice a year. Jeremiah would probably have visited once a week in summer and twice a month in winter with fresh food, mail and small provisions, as well as relieving keepers. 

But, yes, I'd recommend it whole-heartedly. It puts meat on the bones and shows us dreamers that life on a remote station wasn't always the idyllic heaven we think it was!

The current lower light (photo courtesy John Hamilton)

The Lighthouse Keeper's Wife by June O'Sullivan is published by Poolbeg and is widely available in bookstores and online. ISBN 978-178199-676-8