The Ross Coastguard Station in photographs

 

This is the Ross Coastguard station about a mile north of Killala in county Mayo. I wrote about it here in July 2022 because, well, it did officially shine a light from the top window to mark the limit of a reef to the north and the entrance to Killala harbour to the south. Hence it was, to all intents and purposes, a lighthouse, though not a purpose-built one.
My wife and I spent a week up here at the end of March/start of April. It was cold and windy but a beautiful and historic part of the country. The history is everywhere in the countryside from the 3500bc Ceide Fields to countless burial tombs and standing stones and from the relatively intact monasteries and abbeys at Moyne and Rosserk and Rathfran to the site of the French landing at Kilcummin in 1798. Just to place exactly where I'm talking about, here's a Google map: -


The blue bit is Killala Bay, an offshoot of Sligo Bay. The river, bottom centre, is the Moy, a famous salmon river that leads down to Ballina and beyond. The right hand side of the map is county Sligo; the left is county Mayo. The French landed on the second M of 'Kilcummin', top left. We stayed near the L of the same word. 
Killala, just to the SW of the red marker, sports an intact round tower was once a busy port, as was Ballina. As such a coastguard station was set up at Ross beach, indicated on the map with the red marker. From its vaulted position, they had a fine view of anything entering or leaving the estuary.

Today, the coastguard station seems to operate as a guesthouse though it was very much locked up when we visited. Steps lead up from the beautiful beach, adorned with lamps. The door of the tower has a lighthouse on its window, as does another door nearby. There are six separate units in the building, not counting the tower from where, presumably, the light shone.





This would be the window from which the light shone.





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