Ballast Board keepers appointed 1854-1860

This is another list that may be of interest to those people with lightkeeping dynasties stretching back to the 1800s. It comes from The Report of the Royal Commissioners on Lights, Buoys, and Beacons 1861, a publication which would have knocked Great Expectations off the best-sellers list for that year, if anybody had bought it. Seriously, its available on the internet and contains a lot of great information on Irish and British lights, if you're prepared to wade through a 1,000 pages to find it.

Its interesting in so far as the 'Previous Employment' goes, as it shows how many keepers were sons of previous keepers. Even some of those who came through the Tradesman in the service of the Port Dublin route, were often sons of lightkeepers, such as Robert Redmond and William Callaghan.

This is a list of the only two Masters of lightvessels appointed in the years 1854-1860. There were only two, as there were in fact only four lightvessels - the Kish (the Seagull), the Arklow Bank (the Relief), the Blackwater (the Brilliant) and Coningbeg (the Petrel) Each station had two crews, each with seamen, lamplighters, which alternated every four weeks. 

Shift A was run by a Master, Shift B was run by a Mate but in reality, the Mate was doing exactly the same job as the Master. The length of the time that the two gemntlemen above had to serve as a Mate before being made Master is an indication of the lack of vacancies appearing for the top job.