Adopt a lighthouse scheme

 

The above extract is taken from the Sheffield Evening Telegraph of Christmas Eve 1926. It would seem that the Missions to Seamen had organised an 'Adopt a Lighthouse' scheme in early 1926, whereby as many large towns all across the United Kingdom should take the physical and spiritual welfare of the Trinity House keepers in hand, sending literature and other goods and a hamper at Christmas. I don't believe it was a very long-lived scheme. The nearby Leeds branch wanted Eddystone Lighthouse as its builder, Smeaton, was a Leeds man but they got Round Island off the Scilly Isles, which slightly disappointed the Lady Mayoress as she had intended to visit the light, presumably at the Council's expense!

18 English, 9 Scottish and 10 Irish rock lighthouses were adopted in this way, with the hope that this would be increased to a total of 52 (including lightships) over time. The Wicklow branch got the Lucifer Lightship. Reigate got the Tuskar. And that's all I could find out about it!

Getting up close and personal with Copper Point

Copper Point lies on the very eastern tip of Inis Fada (Long Island) and it marks the entrance to the harbour at Schull. I had passed it by twice, once on the Schull to Cape Clear Ferry and once on the Fastnet boat cruise from Schull in 2012 but there is nothing like getting right up to a light and, in this case, I did actually end up hugging it! This post is basically an excuse to show some current photographs of it.

Access to the lighthouse is over the grass, across the stepping stones and then blindly follow the rope until you hit the big white thing

Long Island (be careful when you google it because apparently there's another albeit less well-known Long Island in New York) gets its name for its relative length (5kms) to its width (under 1 km) There were apparently 300 people living there in the 1800s but now the number  barely reaches double figures. Most of the inhabited houses are clustered around the little harbour on the north side of the island, barely a five minute boat trip from Colla pier on the mainland. (There is a daily ferry service in the summer - we were the only visitors but it was a Monday just after lockdown was lifted)

There is a road the entire length of the island, with roughly half of it surfaced. The unsurfaced tracks are grand. We went after a particularly wet period and had to gyrate over a few boggy bits  but the views south to Sherkin, Cape Clear and the Fastnet and to the north to Mount Gabriel were fantastic. It is a wonderful place to spend a day completely away from modern life.

The lighthouse approach with the boat landing place on the left

Accessing the lighthouse is simple enough. A hop, skip and jump over stepping stones leads to a ridge of rock with a rope handrail bringing you to the tower. We were there in the morning, so most of the photos were in silhouette. There is a small landing place for the attendant but to get around the tower to the east, sunny side, requires a bit of careful negotiation, hence the hugging!

The lighthouse here owes its origin to the decision to place a light high up on nearby Cape Clear in 1818. Being often shrouded in mist and low cloud, Roaringwater Bay became a magnet for shipwrecks waiting to happen. Transatlantic traffic, not seeing the warning light, would head blithely full-steam ahead into the myriad of islands off the south west coast off County Cork and more often than not would end up on the rocks.

Copper Point, lightless, in 1903, part of a collection of lighthouse inspection photos by CIL in the National Library

Things weren't helped when the Ballast Board - under instructions from Trinity House in London - erected a lighthouse at Crookhaven but placed it on the wrong side of the harbour, so it, allegedly, could not be seen by eastbound traffic until they were actually past it. I say, allegedly, because some mariners ventured a different opinion.

In the years following its erection there were memorials from all and sundry, as well as newspaper editors calling on the position of Crookhaven light to be changed (it never was) and also for lights at Little Goat Island (the first small island encountered)  and Copper Point at the entrance to Schull Harbour. Thus, the Stephen Whitney, mistaking Crookhaven for Kinsale, foundered on Long Island, with the loss of 96 people. Thus the Charlotte, "misled by the Crookhaven light" also in 1847, was only saved from foundering on Long Island by the bravery of the fishermen there who towed her to safe anchorage. There were further calls at regular intervals for a beacon on Goat Island and a light on Copper Point.

The landing place looks quite new. The light itself is accessed by an outside ladder

Trinity House sent Captain Roberts to survey the area in 1860  and eventually, on 6th May 1862, the Cork Constitution announced that John Swan Sloane, Chief Engineer to the Ballast Board had been visiting the area and plans had been drawn up to place beacons on Little Goat Island and Copper Point forthwith.

On the 18th June that year, the Ballast Board issued a notice looking for contractors to build the beacons. Rather than cast-iron structures, they were to be built of local stone. Crucially, both beacons were to remain unlit. The Copper Point tower is 46 feet high, tapering towards the top, a bit slenderer - if that is a word - than the Baltimore beacon. I am sure I'm not the only person who thinks it looks like a milk churn.

Of course, the press had a field day. The Ballast Board had now spent thousands of pounds erecting three totally useless navigational towers viz. the misplaced Crookhaven light and now two beacons which were not needed during the day and were completely useless at night. This was only slightly assuaged by a suspiciously opportune report in the Cork Constitution of 8th January 1866, that all on board the Leander would surely have met watery graves, had they not suddenly seen the beacon on Copper Point 'by the light of the moon' and were able to safely make safe harbour at Schull.

But the controversy rumbled on over the years. Calls for a light were renewed in the 1890s after a spate of wrecks. It was not until the 1950s, after representations from local fishermen, that the matter came up for serious consideration. With Irish Lights' far-famed speed of action, a light was finally erected on top of the beacon on 1st June 1977.

In February 1981, Copper Point was officially designated a lighthouse proper, though it declined to attend the inauguration ceremony in the Mansion House in Dublin due to 'mobility problems.'

In the north-west part of the island, where there are good views of both Coney Island (yes, really) and the two Goat Islands, there are two mounds of stones, looking rather like the navigational beacons found in the Boyne, at Inis Mor, and plenty of other places. As to the what, where, why, when and who, I am completely ignorant. They may not even be navigational beacons but the remains of old houses.

Quare goings-on at Fanad

Fanad lighthouse June 1906 - on some of the lighthouse tours of inspection at the start of the twentieth century, Sir Robert Ball brought along a panorama camera to record the experiences. The results are in a series of CIL Panorama Albums, now in the National Library. This photo is from Panorama Album D.

A lot of the records at the Military Archives have now come online and have shed a lot of light on the period from the Easter Rising to independence. Of particular value are the witness statements, made many years afterwards, which not only shed light on the military shenanigans but are also crucial to understanding the philosophy of the times, the social world and the architecture of the early 1920s Ireland.

I recently came across a witness statement by one Joseph P. McGinley, who served in the Volunteers and later became a TD in the 2nd Dail. He recounted his times with the No. 1 Brigade, 1st Northern Division, and I here reproduce his account of a raid in Fanad.

At the end of August 1920, the late Neil Blayney told me that he had information that Fanad Head coastguard station was about to be evacuated. We had been discussing the possibilities of attacking this post at an earlier date. If the rumour about its evacuation was true, it was necessary to carry out the attack immediately.
I suggested that the best means of obtaining information was, Neil Blayney being an insurance agent, to go up there, get in touch with some of the garrison under the pretext of selling insurance, and he would have a good opportunity of getting. useful information. He adopted my suggestion and, having made a call at the coastguard station, he returned immediately to inform me that the coastguard station would be evacuated inside a week. As a result of this information, it was necessary to make hurried plans to attack the place. Accordingly, the date for the attack was fixed for the night of September 4th, 1920. It was decided that the attacking party would be drawn from the Letterkenny company. The Volunteers from Fanad company were to act as scouts and guides.

Another of the photos in the above-mentioned CIL Panorama Album D, showing the coastguard station from the lighthouse

Our party set out by motor car from Letterkenny and, on reaching a pre-arranged rendezvous, we were guided across country by Volunteers from the Fanad company. On reaching the coastguard station, which was a solidly constructed cement building, we took up positions behind a wall surrounding the building and about fifty yards out. The light from the lighthouse on the Head was disconcerting to us. 

The lighthouse keeper, a man called Meehan, who was friendly, on being accosted, handed over his revolver and extinguished the light. I gave the order to my party to open fire, and, after a burst of rifle fire, I called on the garrison to surrender. After a short delay we got a reply that they would surrender if we would spare their lives. I told them that I had no intention of taking life and ordered them to come with their hands up. This order was complied with immediately. We then moved into the building and collected nine service revolvers. On enquiring where the revolver ammunition was stored, I found that our rifle fire, in the first stages, had cut off the garrison from the ammunition store. On going to that store, we got one thousand rounds of revolver ammunition, some gelignite and a Verey light pistol, with some star shells to fit. We delayed some time with the garrison, and they shared some of their supply of corned beef with us.
We were informed a few day later than a British admiralty sloop was anchored in Mulroy Bay, convenient to the coastguard station. The sloop was there for the purpose or salvaging gold from the ship, "Laurentic", which was sunk in the bay by a German submarine during World War I and had two and a half million pounds worth of gold aboard. For some unknown reason, the sloop had left the bay that night. Had the marines been in the bay and come to the assistance of the coastguards, we would have been in a bad position. Of course, it is possible that the Volunteers from Fanad would have warned us, in advance, of the presence of the sloop, had the sloop remained in the bay.

The shell of the Coastguard station at Fanad today

As a lighthouse enthusiast, I have to say that, notwithstanding the political sympathies of Mr. Meehan, I was somewhat shocked that the lighthouse keeper should have extinguished the light. Firstly, it was an absolute cardinal sin to ever allow the light to be extinguished on your watch. Secondly, if there had have been any British boat in the vicinity, the dowsing of the light would surely have alerted them that something was wrong. 
The keeper was evidently Charles Meehan, who would have been approaching sixty years of age at the time. A Donegal man, he was a Catholic with a large family. One son, also Charles, would become a lightkeeper too.
Other lighthouses were raided for arms and explosives - Hook Head, Mine Head, Roancarrig, even the Fastnet - but on each occasion, the raiders were very receptive to the notion that nothing should interfere with the beam of the light. As far as I know, this incident was unique in the annals of Irish Lights, although it is doubtful whether news of the incident ever made it into their annals.
About a week later, the coastguards left and the station was burned and gutted. It seems likely from the following newspaper report, that the coastguards got together and concocted a story for the admiralty as to how they had been so easily overcome. I suspect the judge was suspicious! (From the Belfast Newsletter 1st November 1920)

Glandore Harbour lighthouse

Grohogue Point at the entrance to Glandore Harbour, now lighthouse-less.

There are few pleasures in life greater than finding a tenner in the pocket of a jacket that you haven't worn since last September. So, in a similar vein, I was delighted, last month, to discover, in the quagmire of the folder named 'Lighthouses' on my pc, a clipping, misfiled, detailing the carry-on at the annual meeting of the Glandore Harbour Lighthouse Board in 1912.
Glandore Harbour looks to be a fantastically beautiful place slightly west of Galley Head lighthouse in county Cork. I have never been but Google Street Map is a great invention, even though its a bugger to read road signs on. The harbour is home to three major settlements, Union Hall, Leap and Glandore (in clockwise order) and a pile of magnificent scenery.

Glandore itself was a busy enough fishing port back in the day. Mackerel was the main catch - it was salted and exported to England and America in barrels.

So, I started looking into the Glandore Harbour Lighthouse Board, not expecting to find out much. Probably a lantern hanging on a pole, which they had fancifully termed a lighthouse. As my wife would doubtless tell you, it was not the first time I had been wrong about something.

Map of Glandore Harbour showing the position of the lighthouse. The sailing directions tend to say 'avoid Adam and hug Eve' as a rough guide to getting up the harbour. Leap is just off-map top left.

The lighthouse is shown on the last edition OSI map (1888 - 1913)  and the British Pilot for 1917 states  - "During the fishing season or from April 15th to May 31st and from September 1st to January 31st, annually, a fixed light with white and red sectors is exhibited from Grohogue Point on the eastern side of the entrance to Glandore Harbour." So, not a lantern on a pole then.

Detail from the last edition OSI map showing position of lighthouse. Grohogue Point is the southern promontory of Prison Cove which I am told is now the haunt of naturists.

It appears that the driving force behind this lighthouse was one Colonel Spaight, the official local bigwig, who was approached by fishermen and local boat-owners in the latter half of 1896 to lobby him for a lighthouse at the entrance of the harbour. Non-local fishermen seldom availed of the wonderful harbour for want of a light; and indeed the local fishermen "frequently felt this want also in the long, dark nights of October and November, when all had to remain tossing about on an open ocean until the advent of the light of day," (the Colonel's words, not mine, as reported in the Skibbereen Eagle on the 10th April 1897.)

The first public meeting of the Glandore Harbour Lighthouse Board was held on October 5th 1896 and the light itself was established on or around 12th April, the following year, probably some sort of record for Irish Lights. Unusually (well, this is the first time I have come across this) the light would only be lit during the fishing season, 12th April to 24th November and not 365 days a year. Not being of the fishing persuasion, I didn't in fact realise that there was a fishing season.

Subscriptions were raised from a variety of local and not-so-local companies, such  as Cork Distillers, Bennett & Co, Clonakilty, and Belfast Ropeworks. A committee was set up to appoint a lightkeeper and Richard White was selected from a list of six candidates, apparently a popular choice with the local fishermen. He was a farmer in Carriglusky, and his farmstead lay around a mile from Grohogue Point.

Richard White born 1862, the only keeper of the Glandore lighthouse, wearing the jersey of the local Kilmacabea G.A.A. Club. He married Mary Keohane from Barley Hill in February 1896 and had a large family, most of whom were girls. He was a farmer and a fisherman, as well as a lightkeeper, and was a fluent Irish speaker too.

Patrick Hurley who is a great-grandson of Richard says that the family story is that the Townshend family of Castletownshend paid for the lighthouse and Trinity House, presumably through Irish Lights, paid the keeper's wages. I'm assuming they supplied the light too. 

The Glandore Harbour Lighthouse Board seem to have met annually thereafter, usually in December. The proceedings, faithfully reported in the Skibbereen Eagle and the Southern Star, normally consisted of the Chairman reporting on a highly successful lighting season and what a great boon to the the local fishing fleet the lighthouse was. The fishermen, he said, recognised the value of the lighthouse and were generous in their voluntary donations to the lighthouse fund.

Slowly over time, the message changed slightly. It was still a great light, sure, one of the best on the coast of Ireland (which may have been stretching things a bit) but the voluntary subscriptions were not being paid as they had been. True, the fishing season had been bad and hardship had been encountered but a 10 shilling contribution for a whole year's fishing was a pittance that could be afforded by so many.

In 1899, for example, the Chairman reported that they had been hoping to extend the light further into the winter season but the funds did not quite stretch that far. However, he was sure the fishermen would rally round to ensure this happened.

View from Grohogue Point looking out to Adam's Island. At one time, a wooden boxlike structure would have obscured the view.

In 1907, it was announced that the Autumn fishing season would run from 1st September to 31st January every year and the light was to be improved, even though fishermen had reported being able to see it from 12 miles away. This was probably to include the red sector as per the British Pilot description. Gales in December 1910 might well have decimated the Kinsale fishing fleet but for the Glandore Harbour light, which led them to safe waters. The following year, it was proposed that the 'temporary' wooden structure would hopefully be replaced by a more solid stone building.

At the December 1912 meeting, it was reported that, despite the greatness of the light, not one fisherman or boat owner had paid their paltry 10s voluntary contribution for that year and they had no powers to enforce the payment. The Chairman appealed to all and sundry to please help to maintain the light as the large catches of mackerel were down in no small part to the wonderful lighthouse. 

An identical address was made in March 1913 almost pleading with the fishing community to support the light. And then - nothing. That is the last mention I could find in the papers of the Glandore Harbour Lighthouse Board. It is presumed that the wooden structure succumbed to one storm too many and there was no will in the community to replace it. As mentioned, a description of this light appeared in the British Pilot in 1917 but that could well have been a copy and paste job from the previous edition.

So what kind of a light was it. Well, thanks to Patrick Hurley, we actually have the plans which are apparently on display in Casey's pub in Glandore, which seems like a good excuse to visit. The brass lamps, according to one source, used paraffin and the object beneath the lantern, I am reliably informed, is not a honey pot with a drizzle stick, as much as I would like that to be the case. Patrick's sister is also fairly sure that their grandmother, Mary Ann (Molly) - one of Richard's children - told her that there was a hammock in the hut.

Plans of the Glandore Harbour lighthouse. It seems to show a square wooden structure with a long bench, nearly seven feet long, that would obviously serve as a bed. 

  Richard Cummins, former lightkeeper, suggested this Italian lighthouse as a similarly shaped replica of the Glandore light

Thirty years ago, Patrick Hurley took a trip down to Grohogue Point, wondering if there was any evidence of there having ever been a light there. It was probably a good eighty years since it has succumbed to the gale that killed it. Incredibly, he found not one but two indications of the light, so I'm assuming Grohogue Point is not  a huge tourist attraction.

The first of these were the four concrete foundations that would have anchored down the wooden struts

That might have been expected but, lying in the grass nearby was a part of a Fresnel lens, probably the middle section! Amazing to think it lay there undisturbed for eighty years. Not being a scientific sort of person, I sent the photo to Richard and he confirmed that it formed part of a lens, possibly a 6th order Fresnel lens , which indicates it was a genuine bona fide lighthouse in the day. Apparently the family used to have the lantern from the lighthouse  but somebody stole it. What a memento that would have been.

And so, the research into this short-lived, long-forgotten lighthouse goes on. Maybe Irish Lights will have further information when their cataloguing of their archives is complete.

My sincere thanks to Patrick Hurley and Richard Cummins for their help in preparing this post and also to the admins of the 'Leap, Glandore and Union Hall, the World' Facebook page for facilitating my request for information.

Bruckless Lighthouse

A couple of weeks ago, I finally 'bagged' Crookhaven lighthouse, meaning that the only mainland lighthouse I have not visited is St. John's Point in county Donegal. A trip there is therefore in order and while I'm there, I would hope to get good views of Rotten Island and Rathlin O'Beirne.

However, I recently came across another long-lost lighthouse along that stretch of coast, which requires further investigation, mainly because the only information I have on it is a single sentence from a newspaper article 199 years ago.

Saunders Newsletter 2nd January 1822

So, now you know as much about the Bruckless lighthouse as I do. Bruckless lies at the head of the bay prior to Killybegs, as per the map below. The lighthouse that is shown adjacent to Carntullagh Head is Rotten Island, a misnomer if ever there was one, which was established in 1838, sixteen years before Nesbitt's long-forgotten aid to navigation. In the second, close-up map of Bruckless Bay from that period, there is no sign of the lighthouse, indicating it must have been quite shortlived.

Bruckless Bay 1st edition OS map. Bruckless is at the head of the bay. Darney Point, where the lighthouse was, is near the bottom at the nearest point on the mainland to Flat Rock. A light here would not only serve to warn boats of the dangers of the nearby rocks but would also enable them to continue fishing at night without having to regain Bruckless before it got dark. As such, Mr. Nesbitt's selfless gesture would probably reap dividends through the increase in catches.

The Nesbitts were apparently a Scottish family that moved to this area during the Plantation of Ulster. One of the clan devoted much of his time and energy to catching whales which were common around this coastline. His - and his brother's - enterprise was not a great success until he adapted the harpoon to be fired from a gun, thus inventing the harpoon gun. Personally - and somewhat crassly - the name Nesbitt always reminds me of Buzz Lightyear sucking down Darjeeling with Marie-Antoinette and her little sister.
As for the lighthouse on Darney Point, it seems - according to a post on the Belong to Bruckless Facebook page - that nobody in the community has ever heard of it and in fact one poster denies vehemently that it ever existed. To my mind, it must have been a substantial structure, possibly a wooden hut, with candles burning through a window, though I doubt it was a permanent structure of stone or iron. If it were merely a pillar with a lantern hung around it, I doubt it would have been worth a mention in de paper.

If I were to hazard a guess, I'd say it could well have been similar to the temporary wooden light that was used to mark the end of Dun Laoghaire pier while they were building it. Both it and the Bruckless light date from the early 1820s and I'd guess that the wooden box would have been large enough to provide sleeping accommodation.

It probably didn't last long due to its flimsiness. It may indeed have come down in the first real storm after the newspaper mention. This would explain how nobody on that coast has ever heard of it, seven generations on. Scarcely anybody in Glandore had heard of the lighthouse in that harbour and that only blew down in the 1910s.

As always, if anybody has any information, whether concrete or incidental, it would be most welcome!

The death of William Duff, the Kish lightship

 

The Kish lightship in the first decade of the twentieth century. To me this looks like the Cormorant but, hard to believe, I have been wrong in the past. Lightships were painted black until the 1950s, when red got the contract.

Back to 1902, the lightship on the Kish Bank, just outside the entrance to Dublin harbour, gained headlines worldwide when, on 8^th September of that year, she was sunk by the Royal Mail Steamer Leinster in dense fog. Neither party saw the other until a collision was unavoidable and the lightship – The Albatross – was practically split in two by the force of the collision.

 The seven men aboard the stricken lightship – William Daly (Master), seamen William Duff, Patrick Langan, Michael Crowe, George Warren and Joseph Pluck and the carpenter, John Day – had been on board about a week and calmly and quickly lowered the lifeboat and rowed away. They were picked up by the Leinster and brought to Kingstown (Dun Laoghaire), seemingly none the worse for their experience. The lightship sank within minutes. It was eventually salvaged and sold off.

One of the rescued men was William Duff. He lived in 4, Northumberland Place, Kingstown and his main role on board he lightship – now the Shearwater, as the Albatross was otherwise engaged in submarine activities – was as a lamp trimmer. He had been on the Kish for twenty  of his fifty years.

The Shearwater was a relatively new addition to the fleet having been built in 1894 at a cost of £3,900.

According to his wife, Margaret, William’s nerves had got the better of him since the contretemps with the Leinster. He had told her that he never would get the better of the shock, although on Sunday morning 12^th October, he seemed to be in perfect health as he left Kingstown to rejoin the lightship. He and the rest of his shift had actually been due to relieve the other crew on the Saturday but the weather had been too bad.

     His shipmate, Michael Crowe, who had also been on the Albatross agreed that William appeared to be in very good health on that Sunday and certainly made no reference to anything ailing him. The two men were winding up the weights of the revolving light at around 9.45pm when suddenly William cried out and fell down dead. Michael called the officer in charge and the two of them attempted resuscitation, to no avail. The body was subsequently brought ashore and taken to St. Michael’s Hospital, Kingstown.

     A post mortem examination found that the deceased had an enormous enlargement of the liver coupled with ‘a flabby heart.’ Liver disease was entered as the cause of death. It was an unremarkable death, now long-forgotten, for an unremarkable seaman who had given his life to the lightships.

     As for the R.M.S. Leinster, she continued to ply her trade between Holyhead and Kingstown until a few short weeks before the Armistice in 1918, when she was sunk by two torpedoes from a German U-boat. There was no passenger list but, thanks to the efforts of Philip Lecane, we know that there were 567 named people killed, making it by far Ireland’s worst maritime disaster.

     The tragedy happened as the Leinster was passing the Kish lightship.

Sherkin Island, Florence Nolan and the fog bell

 

Sherkin Island lighthouse and the troublesome fog bell (I have no idea where this photograph came from)

In less than ten days, I shall be heading down to the Mizen peninsula in West Cork for our annual hiking break and I hope to be getting up close and personal with the Copper Point lighthouse on Long Island and also Crookhaven light, one of the few that I haven't ticked off. Unfortunately our itinerary means it will be unlikely that I will get anywhere near Ireland's laziest island, Sherkin Island, and its cast iron lighthouse. 

I have actually seen the lighthouse at Barrack Point twice - once from the Baltimore Beacon on the other side of the entrance to Baltimore Harbour and once from the Baltimore to Cape Clear ferry. But never close up.

From around 1881, the Skibbereen and Baltimore Harbour Board were petitioned to erect a lighthouse at the entrance to Baltimore Harbour. A local priest and board member, Fr. Charles Davis, was the chief agitator for this. There was a nasty rock, Loo Rock, some 75 feet by 25 feet, at the entrance to the harbour and he claimed that many fishermen were afraid of entering the harbour by day, let alone by night, because of the fear of foundering on this hazard. Local fishermen, as well as fishing captains from Arklow and the Isle of Man (who far outnumbered the former) were all in agreement that a lighthouse was essential to the future viability of the harbour and the increase in harbour dues would soon pay for the cost of a lighthouse.

And so, with the blessing of the Board, Fr. Davis prevailed upon the Commissioner of Lights to provide them with a lighthouse that the local harbour board could run and Irish Lights acceded to his request.

Because the light would not be ready for the 1885 fishing season on 1st March, Fr. Davis asked the Board of Irish Lights to send them down a temporary light which they did. (Irish Lights were in unusually receptive humour obviously) And when the permanent light was finally established in January 1886, the lantern contained the temporary, fixed, white light. It was a cast iron lighthouse, 27 feet tall, tower painted white.

The first lightkeeper appears to have been a local farmer, one John Nolan of Nine Gneeves, (I think I have the name right!) who took on the job for one pound per week, doubtless helped out by his wife Margaret (Driscoll) and sons. (Sherkin had been the stronghold of the O'Driscolls in mediaeval times)

In 1888, Fr. Davis snapped his fingers again and Irish Lights promptly sent down a fog bell for the lightkeeper's use. There was great consternation in West Cork when the instructions came down from Dublin that the bell would be rung once every ten seconds in foggy weather. This, it was argued, would put the lightkeeper under serious strain if the fog persisted for sixty hours, as it often did. However, Irish Lights agreed to send down a machine which would operate the fog bell so it only needed to be wound every three hours!

In 1890, John Nolan came down with liver disease and went to live with his cousin on Cape Clear. The light continued to be maintained by his family. John died in March 1891 and one of his sons formally took over the reins as lightkeeper. His widow Margaret outlived him by over fifty years.

 

Sadly we don't know the first name of John's son, who took over the lightkeeping duties. What we do know about him is that, in the summer of 1894, he suddenly resigned his position and emigrated to America. The Harbour Board advertised the post, received two applicants and in September announced that Florence (Flor) Nolan, another son of John's, had got the job at a wage of £40 per year. Evidently, the boom in harbour dues envisaged by the now late Fr. Davis had failed to materialise. One year, the amount in the bank totalled £10! So, Florence took the job with the promise that the original rate of pay would be restored when things picked up.

Incidentally, Florence, in Cork and Kerry, is a not uncommon boy's name.

Sherkin Island Lighthouse with Baltimore Beacon on the far side of the mouth of the harbour (The Lawrence Collection National Library of Ireland)

At the very end of July the following year, a fishing boat, the Zenith, with six crew and twenty-one pleasure seekers from Leap, some twenty miles east, had set off back from Baltimore when a fire broke out below around midnight. Florence Nolan, above at the lighthouse, spotted the haze of the light and rang the bejayzus out of the fog bell to alert the coastguards. Nine people were drowned when the one lifeboat was rushed and capsized.

In August 1895, Florence communicated to the Harbour Board that the fog bell supplied by Irish lights had somehow got broken and was completely useless. The Harbour Board related this to Irish Lights, asking for another one. Irish Lights replied saying they couldn't have another one. The Harbour Board said "Ah, you will, you will, you will, you will, you will" and the Irish Lights Board relented.

In 1899, the fog bell was blown down and a new stand was ordered immediately. The bell itself did not suffer any damage on this occasion.

It lasted until November 1914 when it was blown down in another storm and damaged. This time the Harbour Board wrote to Irish Lights requesting a fog siren but this time the lady was not for turning.

In 1948, reference was made at a Harbour Board meeting about the old fog bell and the 'mystery' of what happened to it. At the next meeting, the Secretary announced he had trawled through the minutes and discovered a cheque receipt from Warner Bell Founders for £13 16s 8d  for the bell sent to them in June 1915. The newspaper account says that "Mr. F. Nolan, Lightkeeper, said he was glad the mystery had been cleared up as false statements had been made about him."

Throughout the light's history, the Skibbereen and Baltimore Harbour Board, who appear to have been plagued by uncollected harbour dues and were never flush with cash, tried to minimize expenditure on the lighthouse. A proposal in 1908 to the board to increase Florence's pay to the original £52 per year was rejected out of hand as he already got a free house and coal. Repairs were constantly put on the long finger. They tried to offload the lighthouse onto Irish Lights but the latter were having none of it.

2012 photo showing Sherkin lighthouse (left) and Baltimore Beacon guarding the mouth of Baltimore Harbour like the Pillars of Hercules

The 1901 Census shows Florence (24) and his 15 year old brother Patrick, also described as a Lightkeeper, running the light. By 1911, it was Florence and his 23 year old sister, Annie.

On 23rd July 1918, Florence, who would have been 42 years old, married May O'Driscoll, who was twenty. (I had originally put down that she was a minor, as this is what it stated on their marriage cert, but Marie D. Driscoll rightly pulled me up on this as it would give the wrong impression to people today. I am happy to correct it) Interestingly, Flor's occupation on the marriage cert is Fish Buyer, which shows that the lightkeeping was not enough to live on. 

The Southern Star on October 4th 1930 printed the observations of a Liverpool man, returning to Sherkin after an absence of three years. The postmistress, a Mrs Young, had retired and her post office cum stores was now a holiday home. The new P.O. was more centrally located and was in charge of one 'Mr. Flor. Nolan.' Presumably he was the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker too.

The Southern Star of 14th May 1952 carried the news that the Harbour Board would write to the Minister for Industry and Commerce asking him to grant an annuity to Florence Nolan on the occasion of his retirement. I am sure that 58 years in charge of the one lighthouse must be some kind of record, yet I don't think I've ever seen his name mentioned in this regard. I reckon he deserves some sort of a plaque at the lighthouse for this feat.

He died on 15th December 1960 at St. Patrick's Old People's Home on the SCR in Dublin, my daughter's first flat after moving out. I hasten to point out it had been turned into apartments by then!

Whoever replaced Flor didn't last long because the Harbour Board reported in September 1955 that the lightkeeper had resigned and gone to England. A William O'Neill of Harbour Mouth, Sherkin, was the successful candidate in a two-horse race to replace him.

By this time the lighthouse was in rag order and needed an urgent overhaul. The roof in particular was in a bad way. It appears the Harbour Board dug deep into its pockets on this occasion.

The Lighthouse Directory, which is pretty accurate about these things says the lighthouse was automated in the 1970s. However an offer of £100 was made in 1963 to purchase the cottage from a London-based gentleman, so long as the sale went through quickly. In 1965, it was revealed that the cottage had been purchased by a local man. Normally, this would indicate that the lighthouse was already automated by this time, though if the keeper already had a house on the island - such as, say, William O'Neill - then the cottage would be surplus to requirements.

The light still shines over the mouth of Baltimore Harbour; two flashes White and Red every six seconds. 40 metres high, visibility six Miles for the white, three Miles for the red. (thanks Ron Skingley)

Sherkin lighthouse from Baltimore Beacon (2012)

Sherkin Island lighthouse, I'd guess the 1920s or 1930s. The gentleman with the hat has been named as 'possibly Flor Nolan'