Green Island and Vidal Bank


The leading light today on Vidal Bank (photo Pete Goulding)

I knew I had posted on these two totally-unknown lighthouses back in the day but it still took me 30 minutes to find them in this blog, as I had called them the Haulbowline Front and Rear lights, little knowing that, 16 years later, I would be googling Green and Vidal and tearing the remains of my hair out.


The rear light on Green Island (photo Pete Goulding)

The lights are almost identical, situated 500 yards apart in the sandy shallows off Cranfield Beach on the northern side of Carlingford Lough. (For the best views, take Fair Road off the N2 and get out when you reach the coast). The one to the left (east, front) is Vidal Bank; the one to the right (west, rear) is Green Island. The only visible difference between the two is that Vidal Bank has its orange triangle pointing up, whereas Green Island's is down. Even the light characteristics - a white light occulting every three seconds - are the same.


Think I may have got this chart from Lee Maginnis. It shows Haulbowline to the left and then the two 'guiding lights', Vidal Bank and Green Island. The latter doesn't seem to be on the island at all. The red patch on Green Island is the limestone quarry. The island was also used for boat repairs for many years.

This is the blurb from the Irish Lights site - 

Early in 1868 the Carlingford Lough Commissioners informed the Irish Lights Commissioners that they were deepening the channel through the Bar into Carlingford Lough and desired to erect two leading lights for the channel. The Inspecting Committee visited Carlingford Lough and in their report recommended that the two lights be erected. By July 1868 it had been agreed that the lights should come under the Mercantile Marine Fund and the Carlingford Commissioners requested Irish Lights to make arrangements for the construction of the two lights.
Vidal Bank light in 1905, photo NLI. The accommodation block is larger then than now, leading me to  wonder if keepers did spend nights out there.
The lights are screw-pile lattice steel structures with a small housing for the light on top. The rear structure, Green Island, is 13.7m (45 feet) high above high water and the front structure, Vidal Bank, is 8.8m (28 feet) high. They are 457m (500 yards) apart. Fixed white lights were established on 28th February 1873 and the structures were painted red with a white housing for the light, which at that time was an oil lamp.

Green Island light c 1905, NLI. 

In 1922 the lights were converted to unwatched acetylene with a water to carbide generator. The character of the lights was altered from fixed to occulting giving a two second flash every three seconds. In 1967 propane cylinders replaced the acetylene generators and the light source changed to a mantle from a fantail flame. In August 1999 the leading lights were solarised and the flash characteristics were synchronised. From this date the lights were exhibited in hours of darkness only.
The Attendant who looks after the Carlingford Leading Lights is also in charge of Haulbowline Lighthouse.

To comply with the 1979-81 System 'A' Buoyage the colour of the structures was changed from red to green, starboard hand


Up until 1922, the lights were tended by four keepers, with two boatmen also retained to row them there and back. I have no idea if they stayed in the lighthouse overnight, though I suggest they did because four keepers seems somewhat excessive for these two lights. Some of the names I have managed to glean during that time are: -

1885 - Ed McKenna, AK in charge Vidal Bank
1885 - James Friel, AK in charge Green Island
1891 - MD Donovan, Vidal Bank

1893 - RM Polly, Vidal Bank
1899 - Henry Crowley AK, William Lacy AK, James McKeown AK -Green Island
1899 - JD Murphy AK - Green Island
1912 - Peter Corish, JJ Duggan, Christopher Reddin - Green Island
1912 - James Higginbotham, Jonothan Wright - Vidal Bank
1914-18 - Isaac McKeague - "Carlingford Leading Lights"
1915-18 - James J Sweeney - ditto
1917-18 - John Fennell - ditto
1918 - Philip Sloan - ditto

Four purpose-built houses were built on the shore road for the keepers and their families of Green Island and Vidal. Not to be confused with the four dwellings built for the Haulbowline keepers


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