A tragedy from Clare Island

 

Irish Lights inspection time, Clare Island c.1905 (NLI)

John Gillespie was born around 1859 in that hotbed of lighthouse keepers, the north Foyle estuary. His father, Neil, had been a river pilot there and the Gillespie name would become synonymous with that body of water, with many Gillespies working as pilots, fishermen, sea captains etc. Neil had married one Ellen Loughrey - another Shrove maritime name - prior to 1857.

I haven't been able to find out very much about his career as a lightkeeper. Given his age, he would probably have joined the service in the early 1880s. Certainly he was an AK at Haulbowline in 1885 and shortly thereafter rocked up to Clare Island on the boat from Roonagh to take up the position of AK there.

I am surmising that it was "shortly thereafter" because John married Mary Jane Hurley on 20th April 1887 in Westport. The daughter of a farmer from Inchireagh, Dunmanway, Mary Jane was employed as a school teacher on Clare Island.

A baby girl, Mary Anne, was born to the couple on 12th January 1888. Unfortunately, as 1888 turned to 1889, things started going very wrong.

Mary Anne died of consumption at the lighthouse on 8th March 1889.

On the 15th July of the same year, John Gillespie also died. A cold, which he had neglected to treat for two months, turned to consumption and he succumbed. He is buried outside the ancient abbey on Clare Island, wherein the remains of Grace O'Malley are said to lie. The inscription reads "O Lord have mercy/ on the soul of/ John Gillespie/ Lightkeeper/ who died 15th July 1889/ aged 30 years"

Under normal circumstances, Mary Jane would have continued with her teaching after returning to her schoolteacher's cottage on the island. Unfortunately, barely six weeks later, she died of consumption at her mother, Julia's house in Inchireagh, north of Dunmanway, aged a mere 20 years.

John Gillespie's headstone at Clare Island Abbey

Incidentally, the lighthouse compound at Clare Island is currently for sale for $5 million. Philip Wells, who has been given the contract to sell, sent me the accompanying sales video, which is quite long but contains many shots of the inside of the two towers that I've never actually seen.