Pete's Irish Lighthouses

I recently came across a lovely, informative and well-written article from the Freeman's Journal 6th December 1924, written by one A.A. Bestic, who should probably get a chapter to himself when the story of Ireland's 20th Century maritime history comes to be written (see bottom of article.) So taken was I with the story, I decided to transcribe all of it, rather than copying and pasting, in the hope that some of the author's writing skills might rub off on myself. (I have added the photographs, which didn't appear in the original article) When Dublin Bay speaks The menace of winter fogs at sea Dublin Bay has more to say for herself during this season than at any other time of the year, for it is usually during this period that fog, baffling and impenetrable, descends on our coasts, and increases the dangers of navigation by about a hundred per cent. To a landsman dressing on a foggy morning, the medley of mysterious noises which come floating inshore convey very little...

Okay, we all know what a benchmark is, don't we? It's a standard, fixed point, maybe for pay, maybe for achievement, or cost, against which other more variable points are measured. If I do a slightly different job than, say, a nurse, my pay will go up or down pro-rata with that of the nurse. The nurse's pay is the benchmark by which my pay is calculated. But, and I'm not being a smart arse here because I only learned about it a few weeks ago, did you know that we pass benchmarks all the time in our daily lives, yet, very few of us have actually seen one? (Yes, you probably knew that and I'm way behind the times.) Basically, it's a surveying thing, dating from the mid-nineteenth century. Apparently, it was important to the Victorian builder that they knew the height above sea level of every new building. What they did, they marked a point on a building - one that would likely survive for a while - where the precise height above sea-level had been calculated. This...

Another lost lighthouse and this time I can find nothing out about it at all. This is simply a tale of two Ordnance Survey maps, the first edition from 1834 and the second edition from 1858. Basically, the lighthouse is there in 1834 and in ruins in 1858. It also seems that Kennedy's Quay has disappeared by that time OS 1st edition 1834 OS 2nd edition 1858 The whole area was private land owned by the Kennedy family. They used to open up the demesne on Regatta Day to the general public, though probably not the plebs. However in the 1840s, they started parcelling off parts of the land, particularly along the foreshore and this might have something to do with the disappearance of Kennedy's Quay and the ruination of the mystery lighthouse. Another occupant of "Cultra Quay" (I'm sure he didn't doss on the quay himself) was one Robert Pattenson who was secretary of the newly-formed Railway Board and also a bigwig on the Belfast Harbour Board. Any further information...

Will you meet me on Clare Island? Summer stars are in the sky We'll get the ferry out from Roonagh And wave all our cares goodbye. Front and rear lights at Roonagh The above lines are, of course, from the Saw Doctors' wonderful song, Clare Island , and were on my lips the whole time that we visited the eponymous island earlier this month. And yes, we got the ferry out from Roonagh, a small pier at the end of a long road from Louisburgh. Roonagh harbour is lit by the usual triangle and inverted triangle, forming the lights to lead you safe into the small harbour, lit by very pretty blue lights. But it was not always so. Roonagh has always been the departure and arrival point for the islanders of Clare and Inishturk Islands, though nineteenth century sailing directions speak of it as a place to be avoided in a westerly wind and a bit of an oul' harbour that nearly dries at low tide. Nevertheless, when the Brits were in charge, a 'heavy boat' plied a regular line to bo...

Lightship Kittiwake outside the O2 in 2012 It would be fair to say that lightships, having served Irish and foreign sailors so well for over 200 years, have had a raw deal when it comes to preservation. Of the thirty-five purpose-built vessels that once protected our east and south coasts, only seven still survive. Of these seven - and I'm relying on Russ Rowlett's invaluable lighthouse directory on this - five are to be found abroad. The  Osprey is a nightclub on the Seine in Paris, Gannet is in Basel of all places, Penguin is in England being converted to a yacht, and Cormorant (the original 1878 version that was at one stage the Lady Dixon in Belfast) and Albatross are on the Medway in Kent both in private hands and not doing very well. Which leaves only two left on this island. One is the Petrel (1915) which appears safe as the club house of the County Down Sailing Club in Ballydorn on Strangford Lough. The other is the Kittiwake (1959) which has disappeared from vi...

  The small Gothic tower on the southern shore of the Shannon heading south out of the city of Limerick, was originally erected at the end of 1870 to commemorate William Spillane's year in the office of Mayor. It was designed as a finishing touch to the embankment whereon the gentle folk of Limerick could walk on a fine evening, which had been completed that year. Dublin had its Phoenix Park and Belfast had its Queen's Island - the embankment was a place for the citizens and their families to escape the industrialisation of the city and breathe some fresh air. Ironic it is now subsumed by an industrial estate! The tower originally had seats inside (no idea whether it still does) where the citizenry could cough their brains out after such healthy exercise. There was also a suggestion at this time that it might have a light for navigation purposes (the Shannon Estuary was in the middle of a mad craze for erecting lights) but this was not adopted. Yet. View from the Corkanree Busi...

Another lost lighthouse and one for which, alas, I have no photographs, oil paintings, daguerreotypes nor sketches but hopefully one might turn up.  Newcastle is situated in south county Down (ie, south of the entrance to Strangford Lough) at the spot where the long sweep of Dundrum Bay reaches its easternmost point. It lies roughly twenty miles from Ardglass at the top of the bay. It should not be confused - as I did - with the townland of Newcastle in north county Down, where the cottages for the South Rock lightkeepers were built. I had had no idea that there had ever been a lighthouse at Newcastle until a few weeks ago, when I was idly browsing the Ordnance Survey map Second edition (1846 - 1872) of the area (as you do) and noticed the 'Light Ho.' at the end of the south pier. A quick check showed that the lighthouse was no longer marked on the third edition map, dating from 1906. Nor was it on the First edition map (1819-42) Detail from O.S. second edition map. ...

Last month, we took our first non-shopping trip of the pandemic era down to the National Maritime Museum in Dun Laoghaire. Although my primary interest would have been the lighthouses, the stories of the shipwrecks and models of the boats were very enlightening and even I, with the attention-span of a five-year-old in a classroom with a circus passing slowly by outside the window, found it utterly engrossing. One thing I learnt about was mushrooms and centipedes. I will leave the explanation to the bottom picture. A mushroom A centipede I'll post more on this wonderful museum over the coming months. Incidentally, the new regulations were in place, everybody kept their distance, though it was not very full and lots of space for everyone.