Cape Clear light and some of its keepers

On far Cape Clear did George Halpin a copper dome erect,

but frequent mischt and dreary cloud ensured its beam was fecked.

So began the first draft of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's epic poem Xanadu, which eventually deteriorated into some tat about Kubla Khan and his summer palace.

The lighthouse was established here in 1818 to ensure that transatlantic ships knew where the southwestern corner of Ireland was and didn't attempt to continue their voyages overland. It was very much a twin of the lighthouse on Inis Mor, the largest of the Aran Islands in Galway Bay. Both were built in the same year; they look remarkably similar; both had a keeper called Richard Wilson for many years; both were built too high; and both were eventually extinguished in 1854 when a light was established on a nearby offshore island.

With such an early demise, we don't really know very much about the light, except that the outside still looks in remarkably good condition after 170 years. Thankfully, we have a description of it written in 1835, or halfway through its lifespan, by the son of the keeper, also called Richard Wilson.

It is a circular tower of cut granite, he wrote, in the Dublin Penny Journal of 7th March 1835, the workmanship of which is remarkably well executed. It is about 36 feet high from the base to the balcony which surrounds the lantern and, from high-water mark, 448 feet. On the inside are three flights of winding stone steps. The floors are very curiously constructed, being formed of large stones - the centre one, which is circular, supported by those adjacent, into which it is grooved and lead in the interstices.

In the upper part, or lantern, are 64 panes of the best plane glass, of near a quarter of an inch in thickness; the frame in which the glass is placed, is metal, with copper screwed over. The cupola, or roof, is copper, painted white and ornamented with a weather-cock.

The light is produced by 21 lamps, which are placed in the foci (focuses) of large parabolic reflectors. They are of copper with silver fronts, the whole of which are supported by a branch which revolves by machinery, much resembling a clock but on a large scale. This is enclosed in a brass-pannelled case and put in motion by a metal of three hundredweight.

The light appears once in every two minutes and is seen at a distance of six or seven leagues. From its brightest point, it gradually becomes less luminous until it is eclipsed.. On average 750 gallons of spermaceti oil are consumed.

Annexed to the tower by a corridor, or hall, is a square tower which was formerly occupied by a naval lieutenant and a midshipman with a party of soldiers. The assistant lightkeeper resides in it at present and the principal is in a dwellings built by the Ballast Board convenient to the tower. There are out-houses and yards  and the whole is enclosed by a perimeter wall with a gate opening to the road that leads to South Harbour.

From the description above, I would suggest that the lighthouse in Cape Clear, before its lantern was removed, looked remarkably like the lighthouse above. The only difference is possibly that Wicklow Head High lighthouse (also established in 1818) might have an extra storey - four winding staircases, rather than the three mentioned above. It even seems to have a corridor joining the tower to the dwellings, like Cape Clear.

As for the keepers promised in the title, well, records for keepers get scarcer and scarcer the further back in time you go and the first half of the nineteenth century is a veritable desert of blank squares on my XL spreadsheet. But we have a couple!

I have written about the aforementioned Robert Wilson in two posts, the second of which describes his time on Cape Clear. He was there in 1828 and was still there in 1854 when the light was extinguished and also in 1858 when he died. As I have no keepers listed for the first ten years of the light, every other keeper must have been his assistant.

This naturally includes poor Carty who, it seems from the reports, appears to have been bullied by Wilson into changing from catholic to protestant. He was definitely there in 1845 and probably there in 1843. I wonder if he ever found his first name.

Anthony Hicks was stationed there in the first half of the 1830s. In his early years, he had been a printer in Dublin. By 1858, he was coming to an end and would retire if he could, he said. He was probably one of the first keepers on Eagle Island when it opened in 1835, though he was transferred to Inishowen in 1837, where he spent 25 years.

The Calwell lists - the lists that keep on giving - indicate that John Butler's first posting was to Cape Clear around 1834 or 1835. Quite possibly, he took over when Anthony Hicks left for Eagle. Born with the century, Cape Clear was his first posting and then went to Inis Mor on the Aran Islands, possibly in 1840 when the two keepers there were drowned. He later served at Ferris Point before moving to Greenore in late 1861. He retired in March 1867, aged about 67.

George Brownell was also at Cape Clear some time early on in his lighthouse career. He started a dynasty of lightkeepers that continued well into the twentieth century. He would later serve at Duncannon, Haulbowline, the Maidens, Kinsale, Roancarrig, Poolbeg, Beeves and South Rock.

Many thanks to Elizabeth Doyle for maintaining and protecting this historic building in the face of enormous apathy from the council, government and Irish Lights down through the years. It is eight years since I was there last. Time for another visit, I reckon.