Pete's Irish Lighthouses

Two jolly little stories in the run-up to Christmas, both concerning lighthouse keepers firing fog-guns and both with the keepers' lives being saved by passing ocean-going liners. The first occurred down at the Tuskar lighthouse on the storm-swept south east coast of Ireland New Ross Standard 25th July 1891 There were questions asked in the House of Commons about this incident and the lack of proper communication between lighthouses and the mainland in cases of emergency but the reply was that the man would have been taken off by the Belle anyway, so the communications worked grand. Twenty years later, a similar accident occurred at the Rathlin lighthouse. There are currently three lighthouses on Rathlin (four, if you count the lower lighthouse at Rathlin East, below) but at the time there was only one (or two, ditto) Photo from the National Library The Strabane Chronicle 20th July 1912 Simply another danger for the lighthouse keeper to endure.

  Sadly, I have no picture of the lighthouse at the end of the Ballygeary Pier in Rosslare, so I will brighten up the page by a gratuitous photo of the current, very pretty lighthouse (above), which is the third lighthouse in Rosslare.  The first was at Rosslare Fort at the entrance to Wexford Harbour, long defunct, its circular foundations now lying under the sea. In between, was the lighthouse at the end of the Ballygeary Pier, which has been stated as being established in 1881, as per the Notice to Mariners below. I have only begun to research this light recently and don't have all the facts but seemingly it was wooden, possibly similar to the East Twin Light up in Belfast. It obviously was pulled down when the current light was established. I hope to write more about this light when I have more information (and anybody who can provide any, please get in touch!!) Suffice to say, that the pier was described as ill-fated. Built from The Point and extending 1000 feet out at ...

 It is over five years now since I visited the Calf Rock , which would definitely be one of my Great Lighthouses of Ireland, if it were intact. Sadly it is only a stump, a terrible reminder of the power of the sea. I  had cause recently to research an incident on the rock in 1869 when seven men were drowned and realised that I had no picture of this lighthouse. Not really surprising, seeing it was only in existence for fifteen years and in a very remote position too. However, I was able to find a couple of drawings, two from the pages of The Irish Builder and the third a sketch by Robert Callwell, a commissioner of Irish Lights, without whom we would have no pictorial representation of several of our long, lost lighthouses. The top two drawings appear to be from the south while the Callwell sketch appears to be from the north.  Wasn't she a beauty?

Model of Whitecastle pile light by Ken Doherty, built from a 1927 photograph, currently on display at the Inishowen Maritime Museum in Greencastle The lights of Lough Foyle have baffled me now for many a day, mainly because many of them are gone and there is very little in the archives about them. So, with a lot of help from local residents, Seamus Bovaird and Martin Doherty, I have tried to piece them together and record what little I know of them. In general, Lough Foyle is a large expanse of water, where the River Foyle, after flowing through the city of Derry (I use the term merely because it is shorter) and its outskirts, suddenly widens out as it nears the sea. Donegal is on the west side, co. Derry is on the east side. After partition, nobody thought to decide who had jurisdiction over what but now the Lough is jointly administered. The main channel for vessels ran along the Donegal coast and lights were erected by the Derry Harbour Board to warn ships from straying too close to...

  The remarkable sketch above is a detail of a drawing in the National Library of Ireland. The title of the piece is "Beacon Towers Erected by the Reverend Charles Gayer 1847 (Entrance to Dingle Harbour)" and the National Library have somehow decided that the artist was Samuel Watson (1761-1802) who obviously dabbled in clairvoyance as well as art. To me, it has more than a hint of Terry Gilliam about it. I have written about these Dingle daymarks before ( here ) but in my naivety had thought they had only been three in number.  The tower on the top left hand side is atop Carhoo Hill and is known locally Eask Tower. It originally stood 27 feet tall and was solid in structure, with a hand pointing in the direction of the entrance to the harbour. At the turn of the twentieth century it was increased in height to 40 feet and given a new hand. It is the only one that is relatively intact. Eask Tower (the Dalek) The tower on the right hand side of the sketch is on top of Beenbawn ...

A month or two ago, I posted about a lighthouse that had been erected on the pier at Newcastle county Down. The evidence I had was sketchy. A lighthouse showed at the end of the pier on the Ordnance Survey 2nd series map. An 1861 report mentioned that a 'small lighthouse' had been erected in Newcastle in 1849. In 1869, a violent storm washed away the south pier. Later estimates for its repair included £10 for a cast-iron lighthouse. From all of this, I surmised that the original 1849 lighthouse had been washed away in 1869 and that it had been comparatively small and cast-iron, probably like the one that had stood at Bray, I said at the time. Well, I scoured the net trying to find an old photograph of this light, to no avail. I concluded that there was no further point searching. If such a photo, or sketch, or painting existed, it would fall into my lap, rather than me finding it. Only now it appears that I had a photo of the lost lighthouse all along. And, what's more, I ...

  When I was a child, my parents often had trouble with the neighbours over one thing or another, no matter where we lived. Now I'm an adult, I'm prepared to put up with a bit of inconvenience to avoid the nasty, obsessive feeling of being at loggerheads with 'them next door.' Even if you don't see your neighbours from one end of the year to the next, its a very underrated feeling to have no issues with twitching curtains. Not so these two boyos, as reported to the Cork Southern Reporter , back in early 1843. Intolerance and Bigotry even at a Lighthouse There is a Lighthouse on the Southern Coast of Ireland, not five miles from Cape Clear, on which two Lightkeepers reside with their families in different habitations, the one a Protestant and the other a Roman Catholic. The Protestant is principal light man, was a Lieutenant of Marines, and is this long time retired from the service on her Majesty’s half pay. This sprig of the  Reformation  is in the habit of being v...

 A few months ago, I did a piece on an interesting concrete block called Gunnaway Rock off the coast at Warrenpoint in Carlingford Lough. (And yes, I'm aware that the juxtaposition of the words 'interesting' and 'concrete block'  will jar to many people's ears!) Black Rock, off the coast of Omeath on the other side of the Lough, was a sister of the Gunnaway Rock. It lay roughly 300 yards off the coastline at the end of the coastal shoals. Being submerged at high tide, it was particularly dangerous. A perch was placed on the rock in the middle of the nineteenth century, which was found by an 1864 Irish Lights local harbour report to be totally insufficient and barely visible in clear weather. The lough landlord, Lord Clermont, was unimpressed with their findings. Turn of the century showing the shoals stretching out from Omeath and culminating with the Black Rock beacon . Below, practically the same photograph at high tide. Wrecks, frankly, were bound to occur, ...

  This little beauty of a light has adorned the quayside at Bullock Harbour in Dalkey since 2017. I say 'Bullock Harbour' but some call it 'Bulloch.' To paraphrase Woody Allen, if the two factions ever met, a very dull argument would ensue. Fishermen have plied their trade from this tiny south county Dublin harbour for centuries. The Cistercian monks were granted the rights to the fisheries here in the twelfth century and built a castle to protect their assets. The enclosed community of fishermen were thus safe from the marauding hordes of Wicklowmen but not from the outstretched hands of the monks, who demanded protection money. After the dissolution of the monasteries, the castle fell into private hands.  Sketch of Bullock Castle by Francis Place, 1699 A 'new' stone pier was erected here in 1770, implying that some sort of pier existed beforehand. The harbour became a base for pilot boats guiding ships into Dublin Port and also for the Revenue Commissioners. A...

My sincere thanks go to Lorenz Holenstein of the canton St. Gallen in Switzerland for taking the time and trouble to send me this photograph of the 1954 Irish lightship Gannet now proudly in itds new home in the Holzpark Klybeck on the shore of the Rhine in Basel. It is over a year since it arrived in Switzerland and I posted at the time my slight worry that the mast and lantern were sitting beside the ship, rather than on it in the latest picture I had. Now, thanks to Lorenz, it appears that all is well. She's actually looking a lot better than she has done for many a year. I have cousins in St. Gallen and many happy memories of childhood holidays there.

The four lightkeepers' cottages at Clifden c.1928 ( Copyright estate of Eileen Kates, used by permission.) Away in the wescht of county Galway, the twin lighthouses of Slyne Head sit on a tiny island called Illanaumid. One is black and in use; the other unpainted and abandoned. It is difficult to get close to them, though long-distance views are possible from the vicinity. (I was surprised to see them pop up on the horizon while walking on Omey Island recently) Until the end of the nineteenth century, lightkeepers' families lived on the island but by 1896, change was afoot. As the CIL website puts it -  During November 1898 the Inspector, Captain Galwey and Engineer, Mr Douglass had been instructed to find a suitable site for shore dwellings at Clifden and by March 1902 the Engineer, Mr C.W. Scott, reported that, of the two sites visited, the one nearest the quay on the Bodkin estate was particularly suitable and could be purchased for £225. Documentation was completed by 1904,...