The lighthouse scuppered by common sense

 

OS map of Clew Bay. Clare Island is middle left; Achillbeg is top left; Old Head is bottom middle; Westport bottom right; Inishgort just to the right of the Y in Clew Bay; Newport just off map top right.

Kudos for this article very much goes to the wonderful Dr. Michael M. O'Connor who is the supreme authority on all things historical in Mayo, who first posted this wonderful little tale, which was later reproduced in the Mayo Advertiser on July 27th 2023.
It may be difficult to contemplate but in 1797 the lighthouse at Loop Head was the only official light on the west coast of Ireland. I suspect there were many unofficial lights - from braziers atop towers to simple coal-burning fires on headlands but our knowledge of them is limited to an odd throwaway sentence here and there.
The appalling toll on shipping (and, to a lesser extent, human life) on the dark coasts of Ireland led to calls from shipowners and merchants to light up the coast, particularly in places where sea-going commerce ventured, such as Galway, Westport and Sligo. Which, in turn, led to surveys being carried out to determine the best places to put these lights, at the Government's expense.
According to one James M. O'Donnel in the Dublin Evening Post of 18th March 1797, in an open letter to the 'Merchants and Insurance Companies in Great Britain and Ireland,' the Clew Bay coast had already been surveyed by the Rt. Hon. Burton Conyngham and the Royal Navy's Lt. Drury. O'Donnel says that he has reason to believe that Achillbeg or Blackrock were the locations recommended to the Government for a lighthouse to be erected. (This was very insightful of the two gentlemen surveyors, as lighthouses were indeed erected on both locations in 1965 and 1864 respectively)

John Hamilton photo of Clare Island lighthouse. The original light was in the smaller tower capped by the black roof. It was accidentally burnt down by Reilly, the first keeper, and a temporary light was exhibited until the higher tower was built a few years later. The white dot on the hillside behind is Achillbeg lighthouse

However, JMo says, with astonishment dripping from every word he writes, that he has recently read that the Government's Committee of Supply has voted a sum of £2,650 to be expended on the construction of a lighthouse "on the Old Head, Clare Bay." (I have been unable to find this source)
Now, JMo had got onto Google Maps and couldn't find an Old Head in Clare Bay and surmised that the application was meant to refer to the Old Head in Clew Bay (aka Newport-Pratt Bay) near Clare Island. If he was right, and he was as sure as shite he was, the Old Head, which had many attractive attributes, such as a beautiful sandy beach and a bit of a quay, was a ridiculous place to build a lighthouse because the beam would be blocked by Clare Island and would not be seen by ships arriving by sea. It would be great, he said, for boats sailing over from Clare Island itself, but was spending £2,650 on this be good value for money? You might as well, he said, coining a phrase still in use today, build a lighthouse in the Bog of Allen.
He also went on to infer that certain people knew all this but had personal reasons for the project to go ahead. And that the 'clerical error' of the wrong address was, in fact, a deliberate ploy to deter objections until after the lighthouse was built. (One can imagine the Earl of Murrisk, or whoever it was, throwing off his mask and yelling "I'd have got away with it if it hadn't been for you pesky O'Donnels" as he was led away in handcuffs)
Needless to say, a lighthouse never adorned the Old Head. The Marquess of Sligo built a lighthouse on Clare Island in 1806 (to guide ships into Clew Bay) and another around the same time on Inishgort to mark the way through the long sandy bar that blocked the way to Westport. After only 159 years, they realised that the light on Clare Island was too high and replaced it with Achillbeg, as had been advised pre-1797.

Totally gratuitous photo of Inishgort lighthouse in Clew, not Clare, Bay, included here simply because it is one of my favourites

James Moore O'Donnel was the second son of Sir Neal O'Donnel who owned Burrishoole, the area around the eastern end of Clew Bay including both Newport and Westport. He was the Commander of the Newport Pratt Cavalry and a staunch loyalist. He lost his life in 1806 in a duel with the extremely unlovely Major Denis Bingham by the shores of Enniscrone in county Sligo. According to one tale, not only was O'Donnel lame and blind in one eye, but Bingham fired before the word was given and shot him through the heart.

I will arise and go now, and go to Inishnee

Inishnee (Inis Ní) lies across the water from Roundstone in Connemara. A bridge joins it to the mainland at its northernmost point and it had a population of 43 in 2011, most of them in the two northerly sections of the island. In fact, if water levels rise, it will turn into three separate islands, as only two very narrow strips of land are currently holding it together.
The road on the island begins at the bridge and finishes about a third of the way down the southern section. It is a lovely place for a looped walk but at 7am in the morning, I was more concerned about reaching the lighthouse at the southern end of the island.

I suspect that the same people who would deny Inishnee's insularity because it is connected by a bridge would also deny that it has a lighthouse because it is a concrete hut. But, as I have said many times in the past, you don't disown your children just because they are ugly.

I have no idea if my early morning route to the lighthouse is the easiest way. There may well be a trail down the western shore of the third section. The third section has one large hill in the centre of it  whereas the base of the lighthouse is only around 5 meters above sea level. 
I decided to drive to the end of the road and walk from there. I wore my hiking boots and had a stick, both of which I needed. From the end of the road, I walked south down the bridle path and then turned right. Hopping over a wooden fence I then turned left and upwards. I could see the black water tank on the summit of the hill and made for that. There were a couple of places where the fence had no barbed wire on top, so I precariously crossed the fence there.
At the top, I could see the lighthouse down below southwards, so I made for it in a straight line. Unfortunately, on the crest, the incline of the descent was a little too steep for my liking, so I turned eastwards until the incline flattened out a bit. I'd say roughly 25 minutes from the car to lighthouse.

The lighthouse is in Russ Rowlett's lighthouse directory and there is little information on the web about it outside of Russ's notes. It was erected in 1961 although there was a light established on the station back in 1910. The height of the tower is 4m (13ft) and the lights are 9m (30ft) above mean high water. There are white, green and red lights flashing twice every ten seconds. The white light has a range of 5nm, while the red and green reach 3nm. The Lighthouse Digest site adds the info that the first light was an iron tower.

The sectors of the light are shown above from eOceanic.  I'm taking it that the yellow sector is the white sector. The battery system, said a 1962 report, required only a battery change at intervals of 15 to 18 months. Incidentally, the 1917 British Pilot Guide for 1917 lists only a white and a red sector. And I can confirm the three sets of lights, situated on three sides of the roof of the building are operational:  -

That 1961 was the year of establishment of the current light is actually doubtful, despite the fact that I cannot find a Notice to Mariners. The Connaught Tribune of 9th December 1961 says that, despite the bad weather, work was progressing at the lighthouse. The same paper on Saturday January 20th 1962 says the new type of battery-system lighthouse at Inishnee was turned on for the first time on Monday night, which would have been the 15th January 1962. Of course, newspaper reports are not carved in stone, unlike the inscription at the foot at the southern-facing side of the light.

I'm presuming the date refers to when the tower was finished.
We have seen that the first light was established on the southern point of the island in 1910 and that it had a white and a red sector. The British Pilot for 1917 adds that the lights came from an white pillar. Lighthouse Digest says they came from an iron tower. I am therefore taking it that the first structure, for which I have been unable to source a photograph, was a white, iron pillar-tower. What I did discover on my visit was the remains of something that had been bolted to the rock just to the south of the light. It would have been quite a thin pillar if they were the pillar-tower's foundations.

It seems as though the upkeep of the lighthouse was part of the job of being harbour master at Roundstone.

The old lighthouse was run on paraffin oil, which makes you wonder how he serviced the two islands. He must have taken a boat out but surely he didn't do that every evening and every morning!! Deer Island or Croaghnakeela is a good way south of Inishnee and was replaced at the same time as her sister. I'm presuming the harbour master ran his boat up on the shingly beach 100 yards from the light. But I could be wrong.

The Tribune in January 1962 announced that Mr Joe King, Roundstone harbourmaster, had been reappointed lightkeeper at Inishnee and Deer Island, although obviously the work was much reduced. I wonder if he was anything to the Ballyconneely Kings who had the boat tender at Slyne Head. I wonder also if he was any relation to the Joe King who currently runs King's Bar in Roundstone - 'a fiver a pint but don't tell anyone.' Its not a name you forget.

Of course, the current light is run on solar power.

The little step near the door of the lighthouse, as former keepers will know, is to hold a ladder without it slipping, so a second person doesn't have to stand on the bottom rung to hold it steady. There are two eyelets on the roof (see top photo) which must be to secure the ladder at the top. From this, we can surmise that a) the ladder is kept inside the hut - the attendant would hardly bring it with him and b) that the servicing of the lights is done from without rather than within. Though, judging by the rust on the lock, I doubt it gets serviced very often.

The light facing west, Roundstone behind and a couple of the Twelve Pins to the right.

From the shoreline facing northeast

From the northeast. I think this photo shows that, even though sceptics may deride the ugliness of the subject matter, its setting, together with its history, makes the trip worthwhile.

A worthless idle villain

The square tower built on the original cottage style lighthouse in 1796

There has been a lighthouse on the Copeland Islands, on the southern entrance to Belfast Lough from at least 1733, and maybe as early as 1711. It has, of course, not been the same lighthouse, nor has it even been on the same island but, such was the litany of wrecks on those three small islands and outlying rocks, that it was decided very early on that they should be lit.

Plan of the first Copeland Island lighthouse, taken from Douglas Haig and Rosemary Christie's 'Lighthouses - their architecture, history and archaeology'

The lighthouse on Cross Island (the middle island), which soon became known as Lighthouse Island – for reasons that I can’t fathom – was built by convicts and was established around 1711 or 1715 or 1733. At this time, lighthouses were cottages with a brazier on the roof. It seems that the cottage here had a bit of a square tower on it, from which coal was burned at night, roughly 400 tons a year. It served the area  until science, in the form of oil lamps, made it redundant. It was replaced in 1796 by extending to forty feet, the tower of the original cottage. Instead of the unreliable and impractical coal, the light was powered by burning six circular-wick lamps.

Griffiths Valuation map of the outer two Copeland Islands

In 1810, the Revenue Commissioners, who had only been operating the lighthouses as a sideline, handed over control to the Ballast Board of Dublin. Suddenly new lighthouses sprang up all around Ireland and old lighthouses were revamped. A new circular lighthouse tower, fifty two feet high, was built next to the old one, and the old tower was dismantled until only a stump remained. This new light was now 131 feet above high water and visible for sixteen miles. It was established in 1815.

And thus it remained, until they finally twigged that it would be better to have the light on the outermost of the islands, rather than on the middle one. And so the Mew Island lighthouse was born in 1884 and the tower on Cross Island truncated.

The circular 1815 light tower and the 1796 square tower

But we'll go back in time to 1772, when Finn's Leinster Journal's 18th November edition appeared. This would have been at the time of the first, small, square tower, from which a fire blazed every night.

Or should have.

In 1744, Walter Harris brought out his best-seller, The Antient (sic) and Present State of the County of Down, in which he describes Cross Island in some detail: -

It was a shame of course that Walter doesn't name the family. I wonder if it was the same family that occupied the island and tended the light 28 years later?

In November 1782, according to Finn, the sloop, Lady Loup, from Tarbert in Scotland, was lost off the Copelands and eight of the eleven crew drowned. The three survivors earnestly requested that it may be published, for the welfare and safety of others who may depend on a light being kept on the Copeland Island, that the want of such a light was the cause of their destruction; for that, when they had run the distance of it, there was no light to be seen, and they became thereby totally at a loss what course to steer. They beg of the Magistrates and other rulers of that light-house, to remove forever out of the Copeland Island, the present lightman, his friends, family and effects, he being a worthless, idle villain. 

Remains of the 1815 circular lighthouse on Cross Island

James Crawford sent me this photo of himself on the steps of the 1815 lighthouse many moons ago. James has actually spent a lifetime working on Belfast Lough in one capacity or another.

And yea, I wept for Slyne Head

 

The closest photo I could get of the two wonderful lighthouses at Slyne Head, taken from the beach near the Golf Course Club House 

Have you visited every lighthouse in Ireland? That's a question I, and I suspect many of you, have been asked. Depending on my mood, I will either give the short answer (all except one) or the more detailed answer (depends what you mean by 'visited.' Some I've only seen from a distance but still was able to get photographs of. When I save up enough for the helicopter ...)

A recent week in Connemara gave me an opportunity to get a little bit more up close and personal with Slyne Head than my previous attempt, thirteen years ago. Obviously, with the lighthouses being on the furthest small island off the end of the headland, there would be no hugging, but I'd get a decent view and I could also check out the pier that the boat contractor (the King family) left from at Slackport for over 100 years prior the the helicopter era.

Google Maps showed the road petering out about a kilometer before the end of the headland but it gave clear directions to the spot, though with the caveat of 'restricted access.' I couldn't find anywhere that indicated where exactly on the indented headland lay the pier, so that was another worry, particularly as my wife was coming along and, for some reason, likes to know exactly where she's going at all times.

We stopped at Bunowen to walk the beach and then had a coffee in the smokehouse. I asked the girl serving what was the best way to get there. Oh, its very easy, she said, just go around the pier and keep going till you reach the lighthouses. That's how we always go, anyway. Then, looking at my blank face, she added, but you need a boat, of course.

After another hour walking the highly impressive but boringly-named Connemara Bay Beach (from where I took the photo at the top of the page) we headed towards the end of the road. Negotiating the caravan park, we came across the same five-barred gate that we had encountered in 2011. Absolutely no entry. Trespassers will be prosecuted. This is Private Land. Beware of the Bull.

I'm not ashamed to say I baulked at the ferocity of the language. If I had been on my own, I may have ditched the car and continued on foot with my red cape. Truth is, I'll never know. My wife was having none of it. We turned around.

Its very like the Old Head of Kinsale in that lighthouse aficionados have to be content with distant views of our maritime heritage. Wicklow Head too, by all accounts, seems to be at the mercy of a local farmer. Though at least at these two latter lights, access is provided on certain days throughout the year. 

Bill Long in Bright Light White Water repeated a great story by A.D.H Martin in Beam 9.2, describing the odyssey undertaken by the keepers when travelling to Slyne Head. Sadly, it was not a journey I was destined to replicate.

The M1 (photo Jonathan Wilkins cc by sa 2.0)

Nor indeed was I destined to see the Slackport landing slip, so here are photographs of what I missed.

I wrote about this photograph before. See here. 

(Photograph copyright Pauline Mickelsen)

Relief day at Slackport. Keeper Eugene Fortune is standing far right. (Copyright estate of Eileen Kates, used by permission.) Eugene was at Slyne Head from August 1928 to April 1933.

And finally, just for me to wallow in extreme self-pity, a photo from Slyne Head itself. From the dress, I'd guess first decade of the twentieth century. Keeper John O'Brien (108)  - back left and disgracefully hatless - would have been 31 in 1900 and I'd say he's in his thirties here, though I could be hopelessly wrong. Photo courtesy John's grandson, former keeper and extremely talented artist Ciarán O’Bríaín

The first Ballast Office trade dispute

The old 1781 Wicklow Head high light

Two identically-designed lighthouses (one slightly smaller than the other) were built on Wicklow Head to the plans of architect John Trail. In 1777, four years prior to the establishment of the lights, they advertised for a Superintendent of Lights at the station, whose responsibility it would be to source, interview, house, feed and pay the keepers. 

 

Obviously, the Commissioners for Barracks, for whom it was far more fun to build forts, couldn't be arsed to vet suitable lightkeepers themselves and made it a condition of the tender. When the Ballast Board took over the job in 1810, they appointed keepers themselves but, it seems, these Superintendents stayed in place until either they, or the keepers they had hired, died or retired.

Views from the top oval windows. The lighthouse is the 'new' upper light but it stood almost exactly where the old lower light stood

Of course, the Ballast Board discovered that, at many of the 14 lighthouses they had inherited from the Revenue Commissioners - South Rock, Old Head, Wicklow (2), Howth, Copeland, Hook, Cranfield, Loophead, Aranmore, Clare Island, Balbriggan, Duncannon Fort, and Charlesfort - the lights were poorly kept, due to the pittance that the keepers were paid. Somebody had been making a lot of money on the side and suspicion fell on the Revenue Commissioners' Inspector, Thomas Rogers and the superintendents. The keepers were also accused of using the lighthouses for other illicit purposes such as prostitution, distilling and potion-making in an attempt to earn a living wage, though why people would want to travel many miles out of their way to avail of these services is not certain.

As can be seen by the advert above, only one lightkeeper was to be taken on per lighthouse. One wonders how they fared during the long hours of winter darkness

With new technology coming onboard, the Ballast Board saw this as the perfect opportunity to weed out any bad apples in the service. Rogers was summarily dismissed, much to his outrage, and a Lighthouse trainer was appointed who had to sign off all the current keepers on the new procedures. Those who were considered unfit to operate the new oil lamps after years of lighting tallow candles were to be let go.

We do not know if Leonard Manley and George Wilkinson were the first keepers on Wicklow Head but they were certainly the first trade union activists in the Ballast Board. In 1818, the Lighthouse trainer, Michael Wishart, deemed them unfit to keep pace with the march of progress. Not only that but they were to leave their dwellings and four acres of land. The Superintendent of Wicklow Lighthouses, C. Dudgeon was also in high dudgeon of his own superfluity, being informed he would be paid to the end of December 1818 and no further. All three men protested the decision on the grounds of 'long and faithful service.'

It is actually quite a measure of the Ballast Office's humanity that they acceded, awarding the two keepers a pension of £15 per annum and Mr. Dudgeon a lump sum of £50.

Buoys keep swinging (across the Atlantic)

(This is a little piece what I writ for Lamp 140 a few months ago, and they somehow agreed to publish it. Lamp is the journal of the Association of Lighthouse Keepers and you don't have to be a keeper to join.)

The girl from Ipanema may well go walking but, it appears, the buoy from Louisiana may well give her a run for her money. I am well aware that that sentence will not work as well in America due to their different pronunciations.
The saga began in 2005 when Hurricane Katrina rampaged through the Gulf of Mexico and caused major devastation to the southern US states. One of its victims was an oil well in the Gulf of Mexico, whose location needed to be marked. A company called Wet Tech Energy, then based in Lafayette LA, were contracted to manufacture a buoy to mark the spot. This they did and, in 2006, the buoy, affectionately named 3372899399, was placed in position and moored.

According to Todd Carl, operations manager with Wet Tech, the company realised it was missing on a regular tour of inspection in 2007. Evidently, it broke its moorings and began its wanderings on the ocean blue. One could say that the story started with Katrina and the waves.

For seventeen years, nothing more was learned of the fate of their beloved 399. Todd doubtless managed to pick up his life and continue as best he could. The old place in Lafayette evidently held too many memories, so the company relocated to Youngsville.

But then, in early April 2024, he was contacted by a man called Owen J Dunbar of Ballymoney, county Wexford on the southeastern shoreline of Ireland. 3372899399 had washed up on the beach there after seventeen years adrift.

I heard about the buoy being washed ashore here at Seafield beach in Ballymoney, said Owen, and I managed to see a serial number on it and the name of the company, Wet Tech, who are from Youngsville, Louisiana. Ever since 2007, the buoy has been on the Gulf Stream, or the North Atlantic Drift, as it is called. So its probably not the first time that it passed the Irish coast because the Gulf Stream is like a washing machine that keeps going round and round. As one might expect from spending seventeen years in a washing machine, the buoy is very clean but all the colour has been washed out of it.

The artist formerly located at Sub-sea well, Block 195

Owen got in touch with Todd and told him the joyous news. He also contacted the local news group, Broussard-Youngsville Local News (BYLN) who relayed the tidings to the  population of Louisiana

Owen, though, was worried. Storm Kathleen was about to break on the Wexford shoreline and it was entirely possible that the sea might try to reclaim what it regarded as rightfully her’s. Prayers were said and a candlelight vigil took place, though it didn’t work too well in the gale-force winds. As it happened, the storm only succeeded in pushing 399 further up the beach.

On Aprill 11^th, according to their website, BYLN met with Todd Carl, operations manager, and Paul Anderson, vice president of operations at Wet Tech. Anderson informs BYLN that this morning, he received a request from Aidan Bates, a dedicated marine officer with the Wexford coastline, who is working to move the buoy. Bates has requested a drawing of the buoy to know where the lifting eyes are, a crucial detail for the removal process.

At time of writing, the buoy is still there on the beach, although some lovely person or persons has already removed the solar light from its top. Its fate seems to be that it will be removed from the beach, whether by land or by sea. Todd is apparently too emotionally drained to want it back and locals have been speculating about its future. A feature on a local roundabout, perhaps? A beachside pedestal with an information plaque? Maybe it could even be used as a buoy?

Or, as one local remarked, if there was another one, it would make a nice pair of earrings.

All photos of the Ballymoney buoy courtesy Owen J. Dunbar

Since that article was published, I have learnt that the Ballymoney buoy was not the first transatlantic visitor to our shores. I came across this article in an old Beam magazine about a similar buoy that quit America at around the same time as Owen Dunbar's baby. It washed ashore from the eastern seaboard of the US at Furbo, co. Galway.

And, prior to that, around 1991, a US Coastguard Buoy washed up in Killala. For some reason, the Americans didn't feel like sending out a boat to bring it back so it lay in a field for nearly twenty years, warning cows of the dangerous rocks. Then, in 2010, Mayo County Council took it in, gave it a bath and some clean clothes and installed it in position near the Black Rocks at the entrance to Killary Harbour.

The Killala Buoy tried working on land but the sea was always in his blood (photo Tim Ryan)

In 2016, an eco-houseboat from Newfoundland washed up on the Mullet peninsula in Mayo, having apparently broke her moorings in Canada. Inside they found a handwritten note from the owner donating it to a homeless person. It was, however, in not quite the same condition as the picture below.

And in 2019, a US Coastguard boat made a sudden appearance between Doolin, co. Clare, and Inis Oirr, co. Galway, looking rather the worse the wear after being in the washing machine for some time. Judging by the length of the goose barnacles on it, it had been several years adrift.