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.
The Foze is a rock near the Blasket Islands off the Dingle peninsula. Instead of erecting lights at the Foze, the Bull and the Fastnet, the Ballast Board went for Inishtearaght (1870), Calf Rock (1866) and the Fastnet, discontinuing only the upper light at Skellig when Tearaght was established. And the Fastnet replaced Cape Clear in 1854.
The fixed light on the Coningbeg never materialised, though they spent many years trying to build it. But Galley Head, Ballycotton and Mine Head all came about.
Eventually.
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