Rue Point, Rathlin Island

 

"You wanna join the ALK, you've really got to love lighthouses."
"I do!"
"Oh, yeah? How much?"
"A lot."
(Pause) "Okay, you're in."

Yes, the Association of Lightkeepers were in Belfast for their Annual General Meeting and three days of lighthouse visiting and somehow my wife agreed to let me go. I will be dealing with all the lights in due course but the last one was Rue Point on the southern tip of Rathlin Island. It was not on the ALK's agenda but, seeing that it was 15 years since I was last there and that I would probably rue the lost opportunity (not the last of the terrible puns, I'm afraid), I determinedly set out on my own down to this lonely outpost.

We had actually passed this light on the ferry from Ballycastle and I little thought I'd get to visit, as the schedule was so rue-thless but things worked in my favour and I was soon bounding down the long lane to the lighthouse like a kangarue. It is an interesting 4km walk past dilapidated stone houses, curious sheep, rush-edged lakes and then across a green plateau to the black and white edifice at the end of the road. Or, as they say in France, à la fin de la rue.

Article describing the road to Rue-in from Ireland's Saturday Night 14th August 1937. The tarmac nowadays continues to the bit with the mountainy sheep and the two rocky moundsA

A temporary light was established here in 1915 but it was rue-ined by a bad storm in 1917 and moved to the adjoining fog gun tressle. The current edifice was erected in 1921 and apparently was run by two keepers, who lived in a rue-dimentary wooden hut nearby, when on duty. There was no sign of this wooden hut when I visited though a stone hut (looking suspiciously like a storehouse) lurked nearby. It certainly didn't look particularly rue-my.

Quite unexpectedly, I found I was not alone on my arrival. There were two hardy workers there in orange hi-vis jackets. One was digging a channel in the bare rock with a pickaxe, a display of masculine toiling that made me feel like Danny la Rue. Apparently they were affixing lightning conductors to all seventy lighthouses around the country, a contract that would last five years. After Rue, they would be heading to Tuskar, they explained ruefully.

I remember reading of a Trinity House inspection of Irish lighthouses by the Vivid steamship in 1859. At every station they visited they enquired after lightning conductors and wondered why there weren't any. 160 years later ..... (my apologies to Irish Lights for that unnecessary Rue barb)

Enough rue-minating. Enjoy the pictures.