Pete's Irish Lighthouses

  Pictured above are Danny deVito and Arnold Schwarzenegger, twins separated at birth. Who? Well, they are more commonly known as the Kilcredaun lighthouse in Carrigaholt, county Clare, on the northern shore of the Shannon estuary and the Haulbowline lighthouse at the entrance to Carlingford Lough. The Kilcredaun light (spellings vary in the nineteenth century, making it somewhat tricky to research) is a relatively short tower of 43 feet, sitting on a headland overlooking the Shannon estuary, the light at a height of 133 feet above that majestic river. Until Tarbert was established in 1834, it was the only light on the Shannon with the exception of Loop Head. Until automation it was a one-family light. Sadly this beautiful light was discontinued in 2010. Kilcredaun c.1900 National Library of Ireland The Haulbowline, or Carlingford Lough light is much more well known. Situated on a shallow island, that only shows at the very lowest tide, it replaced a less well-placed light at Cranf...

  Once upon a time I used to write poems. Not much serious stuff because I never really got it but bits of doggerel, humorous verse that went da-dum-da-dum, da-dum-da-dee. Did it for many years until I realised there was no money it. Anyhow, occasionally, if in one of my non-flippant moods, I used to write serious poetry. Seamus Heaney, no less, once said of me, "Who?" This is one I wrote over ten years ago, called A lighthouse keeper greets Christmas morning The flamingo pink sun has flicked its first gossamer lines over the horizon and is now reeling in this special day. For once, the sea is flat and calm and grey, the dancing sparkles chatting like children. Since dark midnight I have carved and painted the final piece and placed him in the crib, among the seals and selkies, the shrill gulls and fishermen, the rocks and the jetty. The refraction above casts deep shadows. Doubtless, my children will be washed and dressed; They will have trailed the path across the fields to...

  Another lost lighthouse about which we know very little. This is becoming the story of my life. The drawing above is filched from Beam 4.2 (1972-3) and is by somebody called E.P.G.* Kinsale was once one of the great Irish ports, which is precisely why two of the first six state-sponsored lighthouses - the Old Head and Charlesfort - were built here in the 1660s. With its sheltered harbour, rich farming hinterland and abundant fisheries, it was already a thriving centre of European trade by the 1300s. The Normans had appropriated it and made it into a walled town in the 1200s and the wine trade propelled it into super-stardom. In those days, the sea extended much further inland than it does today. All the flat land in today's central Kinsale was the harbour, with the old town rising steeply up to the five gates of the town.  Between the Cork Gate and the end of the Long Quay which, as the name suggests, had a waterside view, there was a mill - on Mill Hill -  dating back ...

  Mackerel fishermen at Helvick Harbour c. 1960 (Photograph from the Capuchin archives) I know very little about Helvick harbour. In fact, I'm not even sure it is spelled with a 'k' or not, though I recognise the 'vik' part of being of Norse descent. Nor have I ever visited, although I must have skirted past it while driving from Ballinacourty lighthouse to Mine Head. In all photos I have seen, it looks absolutely stunning and is definitely a place where I would like to spend a bit of time, if only the Airbnb prices would come down a bit. It is located across Dungarvan Bay from the aforementioned Ballinacourty lighthouse and seems to be well sheltered, with a north facing aspect. For older people like myself, the name is probably associated with a gun-running incident in 1973. I think it was on the Waterford Maritime History Facebook page that I came across the photograph above. A lot of the comments were focussed on the identity of the four gentlemen centre stage b...

This is the North Bull lighthouse at the end of the North Bull wall, one of three 'North' lighthouses operated by Dublin port. The North Bank is the square one on stilts in mid-channel and the North Wall Quay light is the black and white one at the end of the quay near the Point or the O2. After many years, I still have to stop and think which is which. The North Bull in its greenness, warns ships entering or leaving the port to keep between it and the red Poolbeg lighthouse at the end of the South Wall. Poolbeg is famouser because you can walk along the South Wall to the lighthouse. And its longer and older. With the North Bull, you can only get halfway along its 2.7kms before Our Lady, Star of the Sea, tells you not to venture further, as the path ends and the causeway becomes ragged rocks submerged at half tide. The North Wall was built between 1819 and 1824 and was marked by an unimpressive perch. This perch was regularly blown down, hence this notice from the Irish Examine...

  Pippa Hare passing the Foze Rocks Inishtearaght (Inis Tiaracht) is one of the Blasket Islands and is probably the only Irish lighthouse that ordinary Joe Soaps like you and me will never get a glimpse of. This is a shame because it is one of the great lighthouses of the south-west of Ireland. But alas, it is a long way out, the lighthouse is on the far side of the island and no boats go out that far. It is of course, Ireland's most westerly lighthouse, in fact the most westerly lighthouse of Europe, excluding Iceland. A remote spot with precious little space for cat-swinging and not the ideal spot for your children to play tag.  However, it is not the most westerly island of Ireland. That honour - and we will generously exclude Rockall in case our British friends get uppity - belongs to the Foze Rocks, two (possibly three) rocks a good thirty minutes more westerly than Tearaght and roughly four miles further south. The Blasket Islands off the Dingle peninsula. Inish Tearaght...

  Scattery Island lighthouse Back in September, I wrote a post about my visit to Scattery Island and t he renovation of the keepers' cottage thereon. I also promised to write about the lighthouse itself and then promptly forgot. Being over sixty, I now can blame all inaction on the febrile tendrils of my mind - one of the perks of getting old. Scattery Island (Inis Cathaigh) was the bailiwick of St. Senan, who, like St Kevin of Glendalough, was one of Ireland's great misogynistic saints. It lies off Kilrush at the mouth of the Shannon estuary and for many years was the headquarters of the river pilot industry on the Shannon.  Lightkeeper Don Scanlan, himself a Scattery man, wrote in his wonderful book "Memories of an Islander" how the pilots had originally operated from Pilot's Hill in Kilbaha, close to Loop Head, but after a tragedy in which five of them were drowned, they moved to Scattery. Near the summit of the only real hill in the centre of Scattery, they u...

  I came across a report recently dated 10th November 1848. It is a report on memorials received by the Admiralty relating to harbours and lighthouses in county Cork; memorials which were received from 1) the Grand Jury of county Cork and from the inhabitants of 2) Kinsale and Bandon; 3) Courtmacsherry and its environs; 4) Clonakilty and its neighbourhood; 5) Inishannon and its surroundings; and 6) the residents of Skibbereen and Schull. The report is the Admiralty's response to the memorials in the person of Captain John Washington. The map is indicative of the deplorable state of the lighting of the southern half of the country at the time. Reading from top left and working anti-clockwise around the coast, there are coastal lights at Loop Head, the Skelligs, Cape Clear, Kinsale, a small harbour light at Roches Point, Hook Head, the Coningbeg light-vessel, the Tuskar and the Arklow light-vessel.  Captain Washington comes down firmly on the side of the memorialists. In conclus...

  Seeing as it's nowhere near International Women's Day, I thought maybe I'd salute some of those pioneer women who first managed to wrestle a few shillings out of the Ballast Board for doing the same job that they'd probably been doing for most of their lives.  Up until the 1860s, lightkeeping was a very male job, at least officially. The men got paid for keeping the light, whilst the women kept the house, did the cooking, reared the children and, doubtless, kept the light as well, whenever hubby got man flu or there was a match on the telly. Of course, there was a lot of physicality to the work in the old days, so I shouldn't really diss the male keeper. My point is that women did their fair share of lightkeeping too. (The lighthouses here would not be the rock lighthouses but small stations that two people could manage.) Up until the 1860s, these stations frequently employed a Principal Keeper and an Assistant Keeper, single men who would share the one house prov...