Pete's Irish Lighthouses

Model of the Cormorant lightship, Codling Bank.  The following article appeared in the Irish Press of 21st June 1955. Words by Dominick Coyle. Pictures by Bill St Ledger. Although parts of it are quite interesting, I feel the journalist could have done so much more with the opportunity he got! Just imagine it – you can walk through the waters of the Irish Sea nine miles from Dun Laoghaire amid 90 feet of water. That is, you can....theoretically. The sausage-like chain of sandbanks running from the Kish Bank with breaks down to Wexford shows its face occasionally at low water. The benefit to Ireland of these banks is negligible; their nuisance value is considerable. Yet their nuisance value can certainly outweigh their usefulness, even in time of war. Their presence is a menace to navigation; and in themselves they are an expensive liability to the Commissioners of Irish Lights. This liability is efficiently met in many ways, not least among them being the lightships at Kish, Codl...

  July 2024 pic of the new light on Inishtrahull The new lighthouse on Inishtrahull was the first major lighthouse constructed in Ireland since Rathlin West. Smaller lights such as Blackhead in Clare had been added to the list but Inishtrahull was the first large light to be built since 1916. There would only be one more – the Kish. I have no idea where I obtained the following little presentation from but it may well have belonged to somebody who took part in the 'Hull's inauguration ceremony on the 8th October 1958, nearly seventy years ago. It took the form of a little booklet with the programme of events, three photos, evidently recently taken, and a prepared potted history of the light. To be fair, I'd have loven to be a part of that trip, provided they had some Jaffa cakes as part of the afternoon tea. Unfortunately, to quote a line from a Ponytails song of the time, why was it my fate/ to be born too late? A couple of points about the itinerary. Around 1880, it was t...

  Members of the conservation project team in front of the recently restored lighthouse Nine years after the restoration of Drogheda North lighthouse was announced comes the very good news that it has finally been completed. T he project was undertaken by Drogheda Port Company under the supervision of conservation architect Fergal McGirl and supported through the Built Heritage Investment Scheme administered by Meath County Council. The North lighthouse was one of three lights erected on the Boyne estuary foreshore in 1842. Constructed by Messrs. Carolan of Talbot Street at a cost of £450 each, the East and West lights were built on tramways to guide ships up the channel; as the channel moved, so the lights were moved along the tramways, at least in the early years. The Drogheda North light, the one with the dwellings, is not a large structure, and one might ask how it took nine years for the restoration to be completed.  Covid, of course, took a large chunk of that time and ...

  Detail from a Lawrence collection photograph in the National Library of Ireland From the British Islands Pilot: January 1917 There appears to be no light at the end of the pier these days. The two breakwater heads flanking it though are lighted (eOceanic)

  The Princess Alexandra and the Moya off the Skelligs c.1903. Photo NLI. I have no photos, or even drawings of the Argus or the Midge, so this photo will have to do I have, for many years, made fun of the Ballast Board/Irish Lights, particularly in the nineteenth century, for their abject slowness in getting things done. It took them seven years to place a fog bell at the Baily lighthouse; decades to commence building a new light on the Fastnet after its sister light on Calf Rock was swept away; decades too to commence the building of new lights at Fanad and Mew Island; and 150 years to replace the too-high light at Clare Island with a more efficient one at Achillbeg. Often it took a disaster and a newspaper-fuelled public outcry to stir them into action. In the interests of balance, therefore, I give you the story of the Ballast Board tenders, Argus and Midge, to show how the Ballast Board found itself ensnared in red tape whichever way it turned: - In 1851, the  Corp...

  Rockabill and the famous roseate terns. Photo Aidan Arnold Aside from the incredible photo above, (I'd have run for shelter and not bothered with the camera!) this piece has only a vague connection to lighthouses, for which I apologise here and now. However, outside the lighthouse, there is very little newsworthy information published about the twin islands of The Rock and Bill and this, I feel, is a peculiar piece which deserves  at least a few lines somewhere! The source of this item is one sentence from an article from page 2 of Saunders's Newsletter of 26th January 1856. Written after the announcement that a lighthouse would be built on Rockabill, the piece throws a spotlight on the island and why the new edifice will be such a boon to the local area in north county Dublin. After talking about Rockabill being 'remarkably free from fogs' and hitherto scarcely visited, it then goes on to talk about its birdlife. Myriads of birds, including the penguin, solan goose,...