Pete's Irish Lighthouses

 This statue of a sailor stands in the garden of a house in Dalkey looking out to sea. The house is called Nerrano House and was recently for sale at over €3million. And the lighthouse connection? The figure of the Metal Man was designed by Thomas Kirk in 1816 to be erected in Sligo Bay as a lighthouse. Apparently there were four figures cast from the mould. One went to Sligo and can still be seen there. A second was placed on top of a large pillar at Brownstone Head down in Tramore. He has become a symbol of the town. And the other two? Nobody knows but the most recurring legend is that one went to Dalkey and the other went to Sydney Australia. There is no sign of the one in Sydney anywhere and its probably lying at the bottom of the ocean somewhere. The legend of the Dalkey Metal Man may have come from this figure which stands in the grounds of a house once owned by the McAnaspie family. Unfortunately, this figure is nothing like the figures in Sligo and T...

Bomore Point lighthouse? Well, if you're not from Sligo in general or Rosses Point in particular, it is probable that you are not alone in never having heard of it. In terms of self-publicity, it makes Drogheda North light seem like the Fastnet. In fact, I suspect a straw poll of Rosses Point residents would show scant knowledge of this structure that stood proudly between two incredibly popular beaches for many years. Detail from postcard above One group of people who would recognise it would be the old keepers who manned Oyster Island lighthouse. There were always keepers out on the Black Rock lighthouse and they rotated with the Oyster Island keepers. However, the latter were also responsible for the unwatched lights on the north of Coney Island (x 2), the Metal Man, Bomore Point and the Rosses pile light.  Irish Townland and Historical Map Viewer O.S. last edition, showing Bomore Point, top middle; Oyster Island, bottom right; Coney Island lights, left middle; and the Metal Man...

Probably the most unusual light in Ireland, the Metal Man was ushered into being after a number of wrecks on the Perch Rock near Oyster Island and Rosses Point. 12 feet tall and weighing seven tons, this naval petty officer was one of four cast by Thomas Kirke in 1819. A second one stands on a headland in Tramore county Waterford. The other two have vanished, probably carousing somewhere. The Metal Man was originally earmarked for Blackrock Beacon further out to sea. Thankfully Perch Rock prevailed and the statue is easily seen from Rosses Point, often with a gull or two on his head. These days he acts in conjunction with the light on Oyster Island to guide ships into Sligo Harbour. The light was added in 1908 and converted to propane gas in 1979. He has been depicted in many drawings by Jack Yeats and others.  see also here

Located in the narrow waters between the mainland and Oyster Island off Rosses Point, the nearest view to the Metal Man Light is probably gained from walking down the coastal pathway for 100 yards. The cast iron sailor warns ships away from the rocks - the light is beside him. Erected in 1821, the Metal Man has an identical twin that stands guard on the south coast of Tramore Bay in county Waterford. However, his Waterford sibling is on land and stands atop a much taller pillar.

Mr and Mrs White. Please note the blue sky, which is quite the rarity for this blog. Photo taken from up on the Sky Road on the other side of the channel  I've written about these two Connemara lovers before, gazing longingly at each other but I never got a picture of the two of them together. The near beacon is the White Lady. She sits at the end of the promontory that marks the southern entrance to Clifden Bay, near a lovely, quiet little harbour of Errislannan and a beach full of the most perfectly rounded stones I've ever seen. Incidentally, the name Errislannan ( Iorras Fhlannáin ) is derived from the same saint, Flannan, who gave his name to the island and lighthouse in Scotland from where three lightkeepers mysteriously disappeared at the start of the twentieth century. The White Lady's exact location is known as Fishing Point, probably because the fishing is supposed to be good there. Incidentally, one monologue from the beginning of the twentieth century calls her...

This is actually the first lighthouse that you see when coming into Rosses Point but probably viewed best from the coastal path at the head of Rosses Point, from where the Metal Man is best seen. To me, it looks remarkably similar to the Baily Lighthouse in Howth. Erected in 1821, the same year as the Metal Man, the lights in both lighthouses were changed from gas-powered to solar in 2003. A brilliant description of life in Oyster Island lighthouse in the 1930s can be found on the Commissioner for Irish Lights website at http://www.cil.ie/sh621x4185.html

One of two Blackrock Lighthouses (the other is in county Mayo) this is a very photogenic light (as are all of them in Sligo Bay) situated off the end of Rosses Point. Basically just keep heading west until you hit the sea. There are good views of it from the land, although probably best not to go in the evening or you’ll only get a silhouette. Certainly the pictures I got this time were far clearer than the last time I was here with my old camera. Blackrock Lighthouse started out life as a day beacon in the 1700s. Not a very successful one apparently, as they kept getting washed away. In 1819 another solid, 36 feet tall, limestone beacon was built by a local Ballina builder called Thomas Hamm. The original idea was that Thmas Kirke’s Metal Man would stand on top of the beacon but in 1821 it was decided to locate the Metal Man on Perch Rock between Rosses Point and Oyster Island.  After a lot of throat clearing from Blackrock, it was decided to make Blackrock int...

There is a very statuesque barber-shop lighthouse at Tarbert (aka Tarbat) (aka Tarbert Ness) gracing the headland north of Inverness constructed by Robert Stevenson in 1830. This post is not about that light. This post is about the less statuesque but equally as interesting lighthouse built on Tarbert Island on the south shore of the Shannon estuary  by George Halpin four years later. The 74 feet limestone tower was built in response to the increased trade to the port of Limerick and the inability of ships to spot a rather treacherous rock called the Bowline (Bolands) Rock. Lighting Tarbert meant ships could now clear the rock and use Tarbert as a port of refuge before being piloted through the narrows. One of the chief promoters for the establishment of a light at that spot was a Mr. Robert Steele, a Cambridge don, inventor of "the communicating diving bell" - whoa!! - author of a treatise on improving the navigation of the Shannon and a man of fortune, who had temporarily f...

  There has been a harbour at Dún Laoghaire, then called Dunleary, since medieval times, though this would have been used only by small fishing boats. In later years, from at least as early as the 17th century, some passenger boats called in at the harbour to avoid the difficulties of accessing Dublin port. By the 18th century, some forty coal boats were trading with ports in England and to facilitate this a new pier was built in the 1760s, supervised by the military engineer, Charles Vallancey. The pier that commenced in 1817 had no connection with the old harbour at Dunleary, however, but was designed solely as a means of providing shelter for the safety of shipping during major storms. The port of Dublin was difficult to access due to a sand bar that ran across the mouth of the Liffey and, as there was nowhere else in Dublin Bay capable of sheltering ships, there were hundreds of wrecks in the bay over the centuries. As stated, the 1760s pier was often frequented by coal boats c...

John Eagle's second book, Ireland's Lighthouses, a Photo Essay, dropped through my hall door earlier this week. I had just come back from holidaying in south west Cork and had seen his magnficent collection of photographs of Ireland's lighthouses in the coffee shop at Mizen Head. I had previously bought "An Eagle's View of Irish Lighthouses," read it from cover to cover, then gave it to my sister-in-law as a birthday present. There were two things that disappointed me about his new book. Firstly, the photographs are so stunning that it makes my own puny efforts seem hardly worth the while. John combines a love of lighthouses with a love of photography to great effect and the fact that he often has access to helicopters makes this a book for me to aspire to. The second disappointing thing was that I had not bought the book earlier, for he gives good clear directions on how to find each light. If I had owned it while trying to find a road to the Ballynacourt...

No, this is not a lighthouse but may be the missus of one!   It is said by some around Rosses Point that occasionally the Metal Man comes ashore and saunters around. If this is true, it’s probably to visit yer wan standing on the sea front, gazing out to sea with grief etched over her face. Carved in bronze by Niall Bruton, she is a memorial not only to all the Rosses Point men lost at sea but also to the women left behind, watching in vain for a sail on the horizon. The engraved plaque reads:- “Lost at Sea, Lost at Sea Or in the Evening Tide. We Loved You, We Miss You. May God With You Abide.”

L' Île d'huile, I suppose they might call it in France. I don't really need an excuse to post a picture of Oyster Island. The white wall makes it look like its standing in a saucer. A couple of newspaper reports from the relatively early years of the lighthouses on Oyster Island. Yes, once upon a time there were two lights, which formed leading lights to guide ships up the channel between Oyster Island and Rosses Point on the approach to Sligo. Established in 1837, they were knocked when the channel moved in the 1890s, to be replaced by the lighthouse above.  Griffiths Valuation map showing the positions of the North and South lights on Oyster Island, as well as the unlit Metal Man I'm having little success in finding Mr. Kelly's first name. A Richard Kelly had been AK on Inis Mor (Aran Islands) in 1921. Could have been him, I suppose. A James Kelly was on Tory and Poolbeg in the 1830s. John Kelly was on the Skelligs for many years from 1838 to at least 1856 so it c...

Approaching the western end of the Sky Road out of Clifden, I happened to glance down across the bay and on the far side, noticed this white structure at the end of the headland opposite. Is it a lighthouse? Could it be some kind of marker that doesn't have a light, like the Metal Man in Tramore, co Waterford? It certainly looks as though it ought to be a lighthouse and one of the Bed and Breakfasts on the Sky Road is called Lighthouse View (there are no other lighthouses in view) But I can find absolutely nothing about it anywhere!!