Knocking down the North Wall Quay light

The elusive North Wall Quay lighthouse on the Liffey

Ireland doesn't really have a great record when it comes to ships ramming lighthouses. The Spit light at Cobh has been hit, as has the North Bank light on the Liffey. Belfast had to completely do away with its pile lights because ships were treating them like skittles. Lough Mahon light was carried away in the late 1920s too.

But all of these had one thing in common. They were all built on stilts in busy waterways. Off the top of my head, I can only think of one Irish lighthouse that was built on terra firma and was destroyed by shipping. 

The North Wall of the River Liffey used to end where the roundabout for the East Link bridge now stands. There was a Watch House there, according to old maps, about where the Point is and this was possibly converted into a lighthouse in the early part of the nineteenth century.

The lighthouse (Dublin Penny Journal 1834)

It is difficult to follow the many changes pertaining to the North Wall light, as the North Wall Quay extension gradually, well, extended. 

1862 - a wrought iron tower with a cast-iron lantern and a domed top replaced the stone tower, whose lantern and upper portions were removed. The new light was 29 feet above high water, displayed a fixed light and was painted a grey/stone colour

1867 - the 'metal lighthouse' fell into the Liffey after being undermined by excavators working on the pier extension. A temporary light was then exhibited.

1874 - the lighthouse was replaced by a new one 200 feet eastwards of its old position

1881 - a new light was built when work on the pier extension was suspended. The description of this light was a temporary wooden structure with a fixed white 5th order light and a fog bell every ten seconds

1903 - the lighthouse was swept away in a storm after being hit by a ship

1904 - the current structure was built

1937 - the current structure was moved to its current location when the pier extension was finally completed.

Detail from an 1864 sketch in the Illustrated Times - the metal lighthouse

So, the night of the 26th or the morning of the 27th February 1903 delivered the 'worst storm in living memory' to Dublin. The belfry of the Catholic church in Ranelagh came down. The factory chimney of a woollen mill in Athlone was destroyed. A tree crashed through the window of a hospital in Limerick. The roof of a railway terminus in Belfast came off and all along the Dublin docks, huts and storehouses were reduced to rubble and twisted girders.

In the docks, the Forrest (or Forest) Hall, a Liverpool steamer, arrived with a cargo of grain from Portland, Oregon and moored on the North Wall Quay. At around 4am, at the height of the tempest, it came loose from its moorings, and rammed a small boat called the Olive, which had Government stores onboard. The foremast of the Olive was carried away by the spars of the Forrest Hall and her funnel was bent and twisted out of shape. Gleefully leaving the Olive in her wake, the Forrest Hall then rammed the end of the pier, causing a chunk of it to come away and bringing down the lighthouse with her spars. This was the 'temporary' wooden structure built in 1881. The fog bell was also sent to the depths in the same incident. Fortunately the man in the hailing station and the lightkeeper had seen her coming and had cleared out.

Photo from the book Proceedings 1888 by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, which Spielberg should really buy the film rights to. To be fair, not only is the lighthouse 'a temporary wooden structure,' but it is also sitting on 'a temporary wooden end-of-pier'

The Forrest Hall finally became stuck on a sandbank below the breakwater pier in sight of Clontarf. There had been only six people on board, Captain Logan, the watchman and two others, as well as the Captain's wife and small son, the rest of the crew having been sent ashore due to the forecasted storm. The captain later declared it to have been the worst storm he had ever encountered and he had been around the world.

In a subsequent action, the Dublin Port and Docks Board sought to recover the cost of the damage, claiming that the windlass of the steamer was faulty, and the boat had been moored negligently, allegations vigorously refuted by the owners of the Forrest Hall. The judgement went for the plaintiff.