Pete's Irish Lighthouses

  Detail of a painting View of Sydenham, Belmont and Glenmachan 1864 by Nicholas Joseph Crowley Due to a restriction on numbers allowed at Black Head lighthouse, the recent ALK visit was split into morning and afternoon sessions, which gave me the morning free in Belfast. What to do? Shopping, maybe? Then I remembered I was Super Lighthouse Nerd and I spent a couple of hours at the Public Record Office in the Titanic Quarter researching old documents, after which I decided to go down to the old Belfast Harbour Office across the river. Places like that, I thought, often have old paintings on the wall and maybe some of Belfast's old lights - the Seal Channel light, or Garmoyle, maybe - could be represented. Belfast Harbour Office on Corporation Square The great thing about the Harbour Office is that it has one of those revolving doors at the entrance but its made of wood, not metal or plastic. Well, I found it great, anyway. The lady at reception informed me that the building was ful...

Part of a series made by Dumnac Goulet, location sound designer, in collaboration with poet Faye Boland, in August 2022 on Valentia Island. This poem was written by Faye and tells the story of history and markers on the island of Valentia, Co. Kerry. There's a nice little link back to ancient times at the end of the poem. (Actually, I'm a bit disgusted, because I took a great photo at Galley Head, with the ancient watchtower of the fort on Dundeady Island juxtaposed with the lighthouse behind. Two watchtowers of different eras. Clever, eh? But the video / poem above trumps it easily)

Chaine Tower (apologies for the greyness of the photographs. It really was rubbish weather) On the last day of the ALK tour, we had to be in Ballycastle for the boat to Rathlin Island for 10.30. I decided to forego the coach for my own car, as it would mean I'd be able to start home for Dublin much sooner afterwards and so, on a really, miserable, rainy 7.30 am I left beautiful East Belfast. It was way too early for what is a one hour drive but I was allowing for early morning Belfast traffic, visiting Chaine Tower and driving the Antrim coast road. From the early 1830s, the merchants and shipowners of the thriving port of Larne had been clamouring for a lighthouse at the entrance to Larne Harbour, either on Ferris Point on Islandmagee or on Sandy Point on the opposite side of the harbour entrance. George Halpin, the inspector of the Ballast Board (later Irish Lights) recommended the former and the Ferris Point light was established in 1839. In the 1860s, the port and harbour was a...

  For the first time, The Association of Lighthouse Keepers decided to hold their AGM in Northern Ireland, followed by three days of lighthouse viewing, with special access to lights not often open. Most of the membership of the ALK were never actually keepers - it is actually open to anybody with an interest in lighthouses. I fulfilled this criteria, I joined and I got three days of lighthouse gorging off the coasts of counties Down and Antrim at the beginning of October. The first lighthouse we visited was Donaghadee, about which I'd written before, most recently here . Pier end lighthouses are generally smallish - Ardglass, Wicklow, Rosslare - but, like Dunmore East, Donaghadee is very tall, 56 feet of limestone painted white, designed by the legendary John Rennie, who also had a hand in the Bell Rock, Howth and Holyhead lighthouses. It had the distinction of being the first Irish lighthouse converted to electric in 1934. I have previously written about mistakenly calling the to...

Two years ago, I sailed past the 60 year old mark, despite my desperate calls of Full Speed Astern to the engine room and, as happens at landmark birthdays, the family clubbed together and bought me a three night stay at one of the Landmark Trust lighthouses around the coast. Due to some virus, which went largely unreported in the newspapers, the break was deferred until this year, so, in mid-September - a time well-known for glorious sunny weather - we decamped down to Galley Head for three nights in West Cork. To my shame, I had never found Galley Head particularly interesting. It seemed a nice-looking light perched on the edge of the cliff but nothing ever seemed to have happened there, except maybe a visiting Sultan had suggested to the local bigwig that the light should shine over some of the land as well as the sea. But by the time we sadly drove off down the winding lane three days later, the lighthouse slowly shrinking in the rear-view mirror, I had fallen in love with the sta...

This post is entirely due to an extremely fortuitous visit to the Ionad Deirbhile Centre in Eachleim on the Mullet peninsula, a body doing fantastic work in raising awareness of the Erris area in terms of local history, genealogy, architecture, archaeology etc etc. So successful are they, that the centre is currently undergoing a huge expansion at the moment, to be opened next May. The thing is that, many years ago, somebody kindly donated to them a number of old copies of Beam , the magazine of Irish Lights, no longer in production. A few copies are available on the net but many are extremely hard to get hold of and they contain a wealth of information mainly written by Messrs. Pelly and Costeloe which is not available anywhere else, as far as I know. So the information in this post comes from Volume 14. No.2 and was written by M.P.L. Costeloe. It has been copied by both Bill Long in "Bright Lights, White Water" and by Irish Lights on their Black Head, county Clare  webpage....