Pete's Irish Lighthouses

  Those of you that remember Christmas cards may recall the rich colouring that were their hallmark, the vibrant reds and greens standing proudly against a pure white blanket of snow to symbolise joy and happiness throughout the world. And that was exactly the sentiment that sprang to mind when I was sent this exhilarating Christmas card from Jane Sims, whose grandfather, Finny O’Sullivan, was a superintendent in the Irish Lights depot in Dun Laoghaire. Printed on a sheet of cream paper, folded in four, the cover features a fingernail-sized, colourless imprint of the Irish Lights’ logo, guaranteed to bring excitement into any child’s heart as she hurriedly tears it from the envelope. It is the inside, though, that marks what Christmas is all about. A beautiful and heartfelt message conveying Christmas Greetings and ‘Good Wishes’ for the receiver’s happiness in the New Year. One can imagine the old keeper sitting in his sparse kitchen on some isolated rock, wiping a tear away fr...

  I think its around ten years since I remortgaged the family home to buy a ticket for the ferry from Portmagee to Skellig Michael. Unfortunately, due to a recent rockfall, the road built by Ballast Board workmen in the early 1820s was out of bounds and so I only managed to see the lower light from up above on the Saddle. And I didn't get to see the upper light at all. Now, I'd seen the photographs of the dwellings on Bull Rock and also Tearaght but I was somewhat taken aback to see the state of the dwellings at the lower light on Skellig Michael. I was sent these photos by Chris Mills, a former lightkeeper in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and British Columbia who was visiting the area this year and managed to get on to the island.  It seems to me that the island light stations are the ones taking the brunt of the lack of TLC. Ballycotton is also bad, by all accounts. Light maintained, dwellings not. Scattery Island is getting done up by private individuals. God knows what Slyne ...

Broadhaven c.1905 (courtesy NLI) John Swan Sloane is the lighthouse legend who keeps on giving. He was the Superintendent of Works for the Ballast Board and Irish Lights before being eased out, an action which spurred him onto greater and greater vituperation against his former employers in publications such as The Irish Builder . I recently came across this piece from him in that publication on 1st September 1880. "Perhaps there are few places not on rocks more desolate than Gubcashel Point, at the western side of the entrance to Broadhaven, in the County Mayo. 'Here, at the instance of the coastguard authorities, who first applied for it in 1843, was determined in 1853 to build a lighthouse to guide from seaward to the entrance to the channel and up the haven, and clear of a sunken rock on western side. The tower and dwellings were built by the corporation’s workmen, from the designs of Mr. Halpin. Whe this station was first visited by the author in 1861, he was struck with ...

  This is the house where Joe Roddy was born in the 1930s. As a member of the famous Roddy lightkeeping dynasty that began with his great-grandfather, born around 1811, it is unsurprising that his entrance into the world should be at a lighthouse, in this case Roches Point at the entrance to Cork harbour. Joe's dad was Pat Roddy, keeper 292, born in 1994 and subsequently retired in 1954. By the time Joe was a teenager, the family had relocated back to their ancestral home in Dundalk, where great-grandad Joe had worked as an assistant, second-class, which meant he had no lodgings provided, as he lived local, but was also immune from transfer. He was probably the first lightkeeper at Dundalk. when it was established in 1855. Dundalk, one of three pile lights in Ireland successfully built by blind engineer Alexander Mitchell In 1949, surfing was practically unheard of in Ireland. The 14-year-old Joe saw a picture of a surfer out in California and was determined to try and emulate the ...

No prizes for guessing the trio of lighthouses on the front cover! As part of the production of the next issue of Lamp , I was blessed with the opportunity to write two reviews for books recently published. I'm not particularly easy about writing reviews because it implies I know what I'm talking about, which is not always the case, and I'm also not happy about criticising people who may have struggled for years to produce their own labour of love. Fortunately neither of the two books warranted criticism. One of the books is Lighthouses of Wales by Warren Kovach - naff title but a great read, telling the story of lighthouses generally, through examples of the Welsh variety. But that is outside the jurisdiction of this blog. The other book is The Lightkeeper's Legacy by Martha Power Baxter, the story of her Power ancestors and how they ended up in America. It would be wrong of me to reproduce my review of the the latter book before Lamp 146 comes out at the end of Nov...

View over Ballinskelligs Bay from Hog's Head It is over two years ago now that I wrote about the lighthouse at Caherdaniel in county Kerry and discussed the possibility of its existence. The basis for my wondering was an article written by one-time Irish Lights chief engineer, John Swan Sloane in the Irish Builder that described the great Irish lighthouses of ancient history. In it, Sloane says " the great lighthouse at Cahirdaniel was perhaps in its day the most famous. James deCourcy O'Connell, in 1548, got a grant in Parliament for its maintenance, with certain allowances and emoluments from the many passing ships going coastwise to Galway, bearing the rich wines and merchandise of Spain to the City of the Tribes, It was also particularly and well looked after by the monks of Ballinskelligs, at the time frequent visitors for penance and otherwise to the larger Skellig Rock ... This ancient lighthouse tower is quite unknown to the authorities of the present day ... lik...

This jolly-looking individual is Andrew Seimsi McGonagle, a nineteenth century lightkeeper, and probably the only one of his profession who hailed from Owey Island. Owey Island (sadly, I can never get the Owey, owey, owey, we're tellin' Joey rhyme out of my head) lies just to the north of Aranmore Island, a wonderfully undulating island off the northwest coast of Cruit Island. An island devoted to farming and fishing (and, allegedly, poteen making), it supported a population of around 120 when Andrew was born there around 1856. At that time, of course, the nearby light on Arranmore Island was dark - it was only to be relit in 1865 - but the light from Tory Island would have shone out to the north. I have been unable to find out why, where and when Andrew started his lightkeeping career, as his period of service does not coincide with any of the Irish Lights 'census years' of 1871, 1899, 1901, 1911, 1912 and 1918. Photo from eOceanic Our first recording of him is in fact...

Mew Island lighthouse (marinas.com) Another story from an old copy of Beam , written by Paddy McMahon (390) who spent many years on Mew Island in the 1960s. Son of a Scattery Island pilot, h e ended up spending a lot of his working life in Northern Island lighthouses, particularly on Mew Island in the Copelands. He and Mary (O’Malley) had five children and retired on 31st January 1979 after forty years’ service. He had apparently refused to join the 2d per week insurance scheme to cover his burial if he died in service, figuring that they’d have to bury him some way or another, 2d per week or not. Sadly the name of the SAK was not recorded Marinas.com photo clearly showing the two old gasometers on Mew Island. They were used to store  coal gas produced on the island for running the light in the late 19th century and into the early 20th century (photo marinas.com) Possibly the same cormorant scouring the seas for eels at the Fastnet (photo capeclearlavender.com)

  The South Rock (Kilwarlin) lighthouse off the county Down coast. Photos of the light with lantern room intact are unfortunately rare I'm currently working on a book on selected 19th century lightkeepers. It's going quite slowly as other projects / work and family seem to be filling up a lot of my time. The archives at Irish Lights are still closed with little sign of anything coming online, as promised five years ago. Anyhow, this is the story of Walter Adamson, one of the early keepers on South Rock: - We do not know a lot about Walter Adamson, and what we do know is mired in a lot of conjecture. Like Michael Wishart, he was a Scotsman, hailing from the coastal town of Kircaldy in Fife. Family history researchers seem to have leant en masse to the not unreasonable deduction that he married one Mary Lawson in Ceres a few miles further north in 1792, mainly because there is a marriage register entry to that effect at the latter place. However, this ignores the fact that in 186...

  Duncannon Fort light from the wonderful beach below Following on from the previous post about the lighthouses at Duncannon, it is important not to forget that the people who manned the lights are every inch as important as the towers of brick and concrete themselves. Irish Lights did not keep regular lists of keepers at stations prior to 1919, so any further information / corrections are very welcome The Duncannon Fort light having been established in 1791 and probably even earlier, it naturally follows that it needed a keeper to take care of it. Unfortunately, none of the names of any of those early keepers, who came to light the light, have come to light. During a Trinity House inspection cruise in 1859, though, it was reported that the keeper at the Fort at the time succeeded his father in the job. This was probably George Brownell and his son, as Sarah Brownell, George’s daughter, married a soldier from the Fort in 1852. As the keeper at the Fort was not required during the h...

Duncannon Fort light with Duncannon North deceptively close (800m) behind (Facebook page) A couple of years ago, Andrew Doherty, author and guru of the wonderful Tides and Tales blog /maritime community project at Cheekpoint, asked me if I'd like to write a guest piece on the Duncannon lighthouses for the blog. Rather foolishly, I said yes. I am now shamelessly stealing the piece for this blog. Andrew's tireless researching of local history stands as a benchmark for all other communities around the coast. Reposing in the shadow of Hook Head (not literally, except during very peculiar astronomical events), the lights of Duncannon Fort might not enjoy the limelight of its illustrious neighbour but it has an interesting history nonetheless. The problem for shipping bound for Waterford in the 1700s was that, having breathed a huge sigh of relief on rounding Hook Head, they then got caught out by a nasty bar just south of Duncannon Fort. Not the sort that sells frothy pints and sta...