A worthless idle villain

The square tower built on the original cottage style lighthouse in 1796

There has been a lighthouse on the Copeland Islands, on the southern entrance to Belfast Lough from at least 1733, and maybe as early as 1711. It has, of course, not been the same lighthouse, nor has it even been on the same island but, such was the litany of wrecks on those three small islands and outlying rocks, that it was decided very early on that they should be lit.

Plan of the first Copeland Island lighthouse, taken from Douglas Haig and Rosemary Christie's 'Lighthouses - their architecture, history and archaeology'

The lighthouse on Cross Island (the middle island), which soon became known as Lighthouse Island – for reasons that I can’t fathom – was built by convicts and was established around 1711 or 1715 or 1733. At this time, lighthouses were cottages with a brazier on the roof. It seems that the cottage here had a bit of a square tower on it, from which coal was burned at night, roughly 400 tons a year. It served the area  until science, in the form of oil lamps, made it redundant. It was replaced in 1796 by extending to forty feet, the tower of the original cottage. Instead of the unreliable and impractical coal, the light was powered by burning six circular-wick lamps.

Griffiths Valuation map of the outer two Copeland Islands

In 1810, the Revenue Commissioners, who had only been operating the lighthouses as a sideline, handed over control to the Ballast Board of Dublin. Suddenly new lighthouses sprang up all around Ireland and old lighthouses were revamped. A new circular lighthouse tower, fifty two feet high, was built next to the old one, and the old tower was dismantled until only a stump remained. This new light was now 131 feet above high water and visible for sixteen miles. It was established in 1815.

And thus it remained, until they finally twigged that it would be better to have the light on the outermost of the islands, rather than on the middle one. And so the Mew Island lighthouse was born in 1884 and the tower on Cross Island truncated.

The circular 1815 light tower and the 1796 square tower

But we'll go back in time to 1772, when Finn's Leinster Journal's 18th November edition appeared. This would have been at the time of the first, small, square tower, from which a fire blazed every night.

Or should have.

In 1744, Walter Harris brought out his best-seller, The Antient (sic) and Present State of the County of Down, in which he describes Cross Island in some detail: -

It was a shame of course that Walter doesn't name the family. I wonder if it was the same family that occupied the island and tended the light 28 years later?

In November 1782, according to Finn, the sloop, Lady Loup, from Tarbert in Scotland, was lost off the Copelands and eight of the eleven crew drowned. The three survivors earnestly requested that it may be published, for the welfare and safety of others who may depend on a light being kept on the Copeland Island, that the want of such a light was the cause of their destruction; for that, when they had run the distance of it, there was no light to be seen, and they became thereby totally at a loss what course to steer. They beg of the Magistrates and other rulers of that light-house, to remove forever out of the Copeland Island, the present lightman, his friends, family and effects, he being a worthless, idle villain. 

Remains of the 1815 circular lighthouse on Cross Island

James Crawford sent me this photo of himself on the steps of the 1815 lighthouse many moons ago. James has actually spent a lifetime working on Belfast Lough in one capacity or another.

And yea, I wept for Slyne Head

 

The closest photo I could get of the two wonderful lighthouses at Slyne Head, taken from the beach near the Golf Course Club House 

Have you visited every lighthouse in Ireland? That's a question I, and I suspect many of you, have been asked. Depending on my mood, I will either give the short answer (all except one) or the more detailed answer (depends what you mean by 'visited.' Some I've only seen from a distance but still was able to get photographs of. When I save up enough for the helicopter ...)

A recent week in Connemara gave me an opportunity to get a little bit more up close and personal with Slyne Head than my previous attempt, thirteen years ago. Obviously, with the lighthouses being on the furthest small island off the end of the headland, there would be no hugging, but I'd get a decent view and I could also check out the pier that the boat contractor (the King family) left from at Slackport for over 100 years prior the the helicopter era.

Google Maps showed the road petering out about a kilometer before the end of the headland but it gave clear directions to the spot, though with the caveat of 'restricted access.' I couldn't find anywhere that indicated where exactly on the indented headland lay the pier, so that was another worry, particularly as my wife was coming along and, for some reason, likes to know exactly where she's going at all times.

We stopped at Bunowen to walk the beach and then had a coffee in the smokehouse. I asked the girl serving what was the best way to get there. Oh, its very easy, she said, just go around the pier and keep going till you reach the lighthouses. That's how we always go, anyway. Then, looking at my blank face, she added, but you need a boat, of course.

After another hour walking the highly impressive but boringly-named Connemara Bay Beach (from where I took the photo at the top of the page) we headed towards the end of the road. Negotiating the caravan park, we came across the same five-barred gate that we had encountered in 2011. Absolutely no entry. Trespassers will be prosecuted. This is Private Land. Beware of the Bull.

I'm not ashamed to say I baulked at the ferocity of the language. If I had been on my own, I may have ditched the car and continued on foot with my red cape. Truth is, I'll never know. My wife was having none of it. We turned around.

Its very like the Old Head of Kinsale in that lighthouse aficionados have to be content with distant views of our maritime heritage. Wicklow Head too, by all accounts, seems to be at the mercy of a local farmer. Though at least at these two latter lights, access is provided on certain days throughout the year. 

Bill Long in Bright Light White Water repeated a great story by A.D.H Martin in Beam 9.2, describing the odyssey undertaken by the keepers when travelling to Slyne Head. Sadly, it was not a journey I was destined to replicate.

The M1 (photo Jonathan Wilkins cc by sa 2.0)

Nor indeed was I destined to see the Slackport landing slip, so here are photographs of what I missed.

I wrote about this photograph before. See here. 

(Photograph copyright Pauline Mickelsen)

Relief day at Slackport. Keeper Eugene Fortune is standing far right. (Copyright estate of Eileen Kates, used by permission.) Eugene was at Slyne Head from August 1928 to April 1933.

And finally, just for me to wallow in extreme self-pity, a photo from Slyne Head itself. From the dress, I'd guess first decade of the twentieth century. Keeper John O'Brien (108)  - back left and disgracefully hatless - would have been 31 in 1900 and I'd say he's in his thirties here, though I could be hopelessly wrong. Photo courtesy John's grandson, former keeper and extremely talented artist Ciarán O’Bríaín

The intelligent Henry Thomas Murphy and his French-speaking wife

Mine Head lighthouse, county Waterford, Ireland's highest lighthouse. The lantern is 285 feet above sea level

Henry Thomas Murphy (Service no 97) was a Donegal man from Falcarragh, born to a coastguard on 15th July 1868. He joined Irish Lights in April 1892 and, after 2 years at the Baily, he was off on his travels. He was in Slyne Head in 1899 and on the Spit Bank in Queenstown (Cobh) in 1901 and 1903. He was made PK in August 1905 and was in Rockabill for the 1911 Census. Shortly thereafter he was in Mine Head and was moved to Haulbowline in December 1916. He was still there in mid-1918 but was back at Queenstown by February 1919.

In 1903 he had married Susan Gertrude Crowley, daughter of a shopkeeper from Kilrush in county Clare. According to the 1911 Census, they had three children together before 1911, all of whom died. One Irish Lights record from 1918 indicates that he was married with no children.

Keeper's cottage, Mine Head

On the night of 14th January 1913, while Henry was at Mine Head lighthouse on the west  Waterford coast, the French barque, Marechal de Nouailles, got into trouble just off the coast. Henry immediately telephoned the lifeboat crew at Helvick Head and the rocket apparatus guys at Ardmore to tell them that their services would probably be needed and he would keep them up to date. Shortly after, the vessel dropped her anchor, the cable parted and she struck the rocks beneath the lighthouse. Henry immediately phoned the lifeboat crew at Helvick Head to tell them not to come out, as they would surely be capsized, the vessel being on the rocks.

The sea below the lighthouse

He then phoned Ardmore and told them to come to the lighthouse immediately as there was a good chance the crew could be saved. While waiting for them, he went down the cliff and 'burned lights' so the men on the boat knew that they had been seen and help was at hand. When the rocket guys arrived, they set to work but unfortunately the ropes fouled and they had to wait for morning to break to use the breeches apparatus. Eventually, all the men were rescued, including two with broken legs and they were conveyed to the lighthouse where every care and attention was given to the men by Henry and Susan, who seem to have been the only lighthouse personnel on duty, even though it was a three-keeper station in the wintertime. Two doctors had also arrived from Dungarvan and the French crew were soon patched up and despatched to hospital.

Tour of inspection 1905

The following year, Henry was presented with an oxidised silver medal and brevet of the First Class by a French Consular Official on behalf of the President of the French Republic. The consul was at pains to point out that the award was not for bravery or heroism but for the intelligence and devotion he displayed on the occasion of the wreck. He also thanked  the rocket guys and the doctors and the hospital, before singling out Mrs. Murphy for particular praise.

One would not expect, he said, at an isolated lighthouse like Mine Head, that a person would be got who could speak French but it so happened that, when the injured men were there, the doctors were able to find out what was wrong as, curious to relate, Mrs Murphy had a first-class knowledge of French and was able to interpret for the doctors to give first-class aid in consequence.

Some time between mid-1918 and February 1919, Henry took charge of the Spit Bank lighthouse in Cork Harbour, moving into 22, Roche's Row, Queenstown, behind the cathedral. Unfortunately, here he contracted the so-called Spanish flu (influenza), and, five days later, became the last of the four Irish lightkeepers to die of the epidemic. He was fifty years of age.

Childless and husbandless, the French-speaking Susan returned back home to Kilrush, where she died in 1937, aged 66.

The first Ballast Office trade dispute

The old 1781 Wicklow Head high light

Two identically-designed lighthouses (one slightly smaller than the other) were built on Wicklow Head to the plans of architect John Trail. In 1777, four years prior to the establishment of the lights, they advertised for a Superintendent of Lights at the station, whose responsibility it would be to source, interview, house, feed and pay the keepers. 

 

Obviously, the Commissioners for Barracks, for whom it was far more fun to build forts, couldn't be arsed to vet suitable lightkeepers themselves and made it a condition of the tender. When the Ballast Board took over the job in 1810, they appointed keepers themselves but, it seems, these Superintendents stayed in place until either they, or the keepers they had hired, died or retired.

Views from the top oval windows. The lighthouse is the 'new' upper light but it stood almost exactly where the old lower light stood

Of course, the Ballast Board discovered that, at many of the 14 lighthouses they had inherited from the Revenue Commissioners - South Rock, Old Head, Wicklow (2), Howth, Copeland, Hook, Cranfield, Loophead, Aranmore, Clare Island, Balbriggan, Duncannon Fort, and Charlesfort - the lights were poorly kept, due to the pittance that the keepers were paid. Somebody had been making a lot of money on the side and suspicion fell on the Revenue Commissioners' Inspector, Thomas Rogers and the superintendents. The keepers were also accused of using the lighthouses for other illicit purposes such as prostitution, distilling and potion-making in an attempt to earn a living wage, though why people would want to travel many miles out of their way to avail of these services is not certain.

As can be seen by the advert above, only one lightkeeper was to be taken on per lighthouse. One wonders how they fared during the long hours of winter darkness

With new technology coming onboard, the Ballast Board saw this as the perfect opportunity to weed out any bad apples in the service. Rogers was summarily dismissed, much to his outrage, and a Lighthouse trainer was appointed who had to sign off all the current keepers on the new procedures. Those who were considered unfit to operate the new oil lamps after years of lighting tallow candles were to be let go.

We do not know if Leonard Manley and George Wilkinson were the first keepers on Wicklow Head but they were certainly the first trade union activists in the Ballast Board. In 1818, the Lighthouse trainer, Michael Wishart, deemed them unfit to keep pace with the march of progress. Not only that but they were to leave their dwellings and four acres of land. The Superintendent of Wicklow Lighthouses, C. Dudgeon was also in high dudgeon of his own superfluity, being informed he would be paid to the end of December 1818 and no further. All three men protested the decision on the grounds of 'long and faithful service.'

It is actually quite a measure of the Ballast Office's humanity that they acceded, awarding the two keepers a pension of £15 per annum and Mr. Dudgeon a lump sum of £50.

Buoys keep swinging (across the Atlantic)

(This is a little piece what I writ for Lamp 140 a few months ago, and they somehow agreed to publish it. Lamp is the journal of the Association of Lighthouse Keepers and you don't have to be a keeper to join.)

The girl from Ipanema may well go walking but, it appears, the buoy from Louisiana may well give her a run for her money. I am well aware that that sentence will not work as well in America due to their different pronunciations.
The saga began in 2005 when Hurricane Katrina rampaged through the Gulf of Mexico and caused major devastation to the southern US states. One of its victims was an oil well in the Gulf of Mexico, whose location needed to be marked. A company called Wet Tech Energy, then based in Lafayette LA, were contracted to manufacture a buoy to mark the spot. This they did and, in 2006, the buoy, affectionately named 3372899399, was placed in position and moored.

According to Todd Carl, operations manager with Wet Tech, the company realised it was missing on a regular tour of inspection in 2007. Evidently, it broke its moorings and began its wanderings on the ocean blue. One could say that the story started with Katrina and the waves.

For seventeen years, nothing more was learned of the fate of their beloved 399. Todd doubtless managed to pick up his life and continue as best he could. The old place in Lafayette evidently held too many memories, so the company relocated to Youngsville.

But then, in early April 2024, he was contacted by a man called Owen J Dunbar of Ballymoney, county Wexford on the southeastern shoreline of Ireland. 3372899399 had washed up on the beach there after seventeen years adrift.

I heard about the buoy being washed ashore here at Seafield beach in Ballymoney, said Owen, and I managed to see a serial number on it and the name of the company, Wet Tech, who are from Youngsville, Louisiana. Ever since 2007, the buoy has been on the Gulf Stream, or the North Atlantic Drift, as it is called. So its probably not the first time that it passed the Irish coast because the Gulf Stream is like a washing machine that keeps going round and round. As one might expect from spending seventeen years in a washing machine, the buoy is very clean but all the colour has been washed out of it.

The artist formerly located at Sub-sea well, Block 195

Owen got in touch with Todd and told him the joyous news. He also contacted the local news group, Broussard-Youngsville Local News (BYLN) who relayed the tidings to the  population of Louisiana

Owen, though, was worried. Storm Kathleen was about to break on the Wexford shoreline and it was entirely possible that the sea might try to reclaim what it regarded as rightfully her’s. Prayers were said and a candlelight vigil took place, though it didn’t work too well in the gale-force winds. As it happened, the storm only succeeded in pushing 399 further up the beach.

On Aprill 11^th, according to their website, BYLN met with Todd Carl, operations manager, and Paul Anderson, vice president of operations at Wet Tech. Anderson informs BYLN that this morning, he received a request from Aidan Bates, a dedicated marine officer with the Wexford coastline, who is working to move the buoy. Bates has requested a drawing of the buoy to know where the lifting eyes are, a crucial detail for the removal process.

At time of writing, the buoy is still there on the beach, although some lovely person or persons has already removed the solar light from its top. Its fate seems to be that it will be removed from the beach, whether by land or by sea. Todd is apparently too emotionally drained to want it back and locals have been speculating about its future. A feature on a local roundabout, perhaps? A beachside pedestal with an information plaque? Maybe it could even be used as a buoy?

Or, as one local remarked, if there was another one, it would make a nice pair of earrings.

All photos of the Ballymoney buoy courtesy Owen J. Dunbar

Since that article was published, I have learnt that the Ballymoney buoy was not the first transatlantic visitor to our shores. I came across this article in an old Beam magazine about a similar buoy that quit America at around the same time as Owen Dunbar's baby. It washed ashore from the eastern seaboard of the US at Furbo, co. Galway.

And, prior to that, around 1991, a US Coastguard Buoy washed up in Killala. For some reason, the Americans didn't feel like sending out a boat to bring it back so it lay in a field for nearly twenty years, warning cows of the dangerous rocks. Then, in 2010, Mayo County Council took it in, gave it a bath and some clean clothes and installed it in position near the Black Rocks at the entrance to Killary Harbour.

The Killala Buoy tried working on land but the sea was always in his blood (photo Tim Ryan)

In 2016, an eco-houseboat from Newfoundland washed up on the Mullet peninsula in Mayo, having apparently broke her moorings in Canada. Inside they found a handwritten note from the owner donating it to a homeless person. It was, however, in not quite the same condition as the picture below.

And in 2019, a US Coastguard boat made a sudden appearance between Doolin, co. Clare, and Inis Oirr, co. Galway, looking rather the worse the wear after being in the washing machine for some time. Judging by the length of the goose barnacles on it, it had been several years adrift.

Life on the Fastnet, 1956 style

The Fastnet and the little Fastnet (aw, isn't he cute?)

A blast from the past from the Irish Examiner 7th January 1956. The author of the piece is Youghal attendant Andrew Coughlan. There were Coughlans on the Fastnet almost from the very start in 1854.

 

1906 Accessing the Fastnet (NLI)

Like a Roundstone cowboy

 

The old cowboy in the corner of the Roundstone saloon spat in the vague direction of the spittoon and drained his whuskey.

"The round stone?" he asked. "What would a feller like you be wanting with the round stone?"

I explained that I researched lighthouses and navigational beacons and I had heard legends about an old round stone in this part of Connemara.

"Ah, I could tell you all about the round stone," my newly-found friend whispered hoarsely, "but my throat is desperate dry."

After I had replenished his beverage, he began his tale.

"Here in Roundstone, we talk about Before Nimmo and After Nimmo. Alexander Nimmo, came over from Scotland. Couldn't understand a word he said and he had no Gaelic, not even Scot's Gaelic. Before he came, there was only a few houses dotted up and down the coast and a bit of a harbour for the boys to fish out of..."

"He built the lighthouse at Dunmore East too," I interjected.

"That he did, and a lot of roads and piers and bridges around the country too, though mainly in Galway and Mayo. Didn't build a lighthouse here, though. Could've done with one. Fierce hardworking man. I remember passing him by and he digging out foundations for the pier here, all on his lonesome, and the sweat dripping off him."

"That would have been around 1822 to 1824," I said, somewhat doubtfully. 

"Aye, you could be right, about that time. Great man he was too."

"And the round stone?"

"I'm coming to that. Before Nimmo, you see, there was nothing except rocks and islands and inlets. The lads'd go out fishing and when they were coming in again, they couldn't tell one place from another, so they'd end up in Glynsk or Letterfrack or anywhere. One lad ended up with three different families all along the coast. Every time he put out to sea, he couldn't find his way back and ended up settling in another spot..."

"That's all by the way until in 1678, a man by the name of Roderic O'Flaherty came here. He was a bit like you, baldy-headed and not very good-looking but he could read and write like the duvvle."

"You remember him, I suppose?" I asked, somewhat sarcastically.

"Little Roddy? Yes, course I do. Fierce nice chap except when you needed a drink. Anyway, Roddy noticed there was a big round stone at the entrance to Roundstone Bay. Not on the Inishnee side, mind, on the western end. And he was in this very saloon one night and he says out loud, 'Boys, when yous are coming back from fishing, why don't you look for the big round stone at the entrance of the harbour? That way, you'd know where you were.' He said it in Irish, mind - Cuan na cloiche runta, the bay of the round stone. And the boys looked at him like he was Elijah coming down from the mountain. And that's how the town got its name."

"I thought it was Cloch na Rón, the rock of the seal?"    

"Ah, so they say, but they weren't there at the time."

"And what happened to this round stone?" I enquired.

"Ah, its still there. Sure, who's going to move it? Go down to the monastery and on the right you'll see a gate. Follow the monastery wall until you come out in a field with a herd of cows in it ready to be driven up to Wyoming and you'll see the round stone just offshore. Now there was talk of another drink but sure ..."

1st edition OS Map

Last edition OS map