Hog's Head lighthouse?

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 ... like Loophead, it was square, of great strength and, on its flat but vaulted roof, was burned the beacon fire. When the lighting of the coast was undertaken by the Revenue Board, it was discontinued and permitted to fall into disuse and ruin; but yet, in its decay, it shows evidence of grand structural skill, being evidently the work of the same artisans who constructed Loop Head and the Great Aran."
John Swan Sloane was a former Chief Engineer of the Ballast Board, who was unexpectedly turfed out of Irish Lights as his greatest triumph, Galley Head lighthouse, was coming to fruition. He spent his remaining years sniping at the Board under many different pseudonyms in the Irish Builder. Hence his dig above about how the authorities of today have never heard of the lighthouse at Caherdaniel.

Perusing old maps of Caherdaniel found nothing that could be interpreted as a lighthouse. I got in touch with local historians, who had never come across such an edifice and, anyway, Caherdaniel was out of sight of the sea. Further reading of Sloane's articles in the Irish Builder showed he was frequently inaccurate in his facts, whether through forgetfulness, not checking or simply to prove a point he was making. I kind of came to the conclusion that there was no lighthouse at Caherdaniel and Sloane was wrong.

However, I have recently come across another article by 'Ben Bulben' in the Irish Builder, which expands on the brief description he gives above. Basically, it is a tale in which the author goes to visit his uncle in Sligo. The uncle wants to build a lighthouse to keep people from robbing his oysters. The author's brother, Tom, has been charged with going off to find out how to build one. Tom comes back and starts telling them how complicated it is. This is used as a vehicle to show how red-taped Irish Lights has become since Ben's uncle's day. (Ben, of course, is John Swan Sloane) The uncle loses the plot and goes off on a rant about how simple things were in the old days (when they had a great engineer). He then says he was at the building of the lighthouse in Caherdaniel:

So, this puts the 'lighthouse at Caherdaniel' - if it ever existed -  much further out that Daniel O'Connell's home, right out on the headland, in fact. So I took a look at the old Ordnance Survey maps and, sure enough ...

Caherdaniel bottom right, Hog's Head top left. I'd been looking in the wrong place

1st edition OS map of Hog's Head (1841-2) "Old Light Ho."

Last edition OS map "Lighthouse Disused"

Checking with the Historical Monuments Viewer, the site is listed as the Barracks of An Rinnín and the lengthy description by Stuart Rathbone, who is more of a historian than I could ever be, states that the two sites have been incorrectly labelled on the OS maps.

I give a couple of highly-selective extracts from Stuart's site assessment - 

Situated on top of a short undulating E-W running ridge c. 2.15kms ESE\E of the tip of Hog’s Head .  The site has unobstructed views to the N, S and W with more limited views to the E on account of the rising topography.

The remains of an early nineteenth-century (c. 1810) three-bay two-storey or single-storey over raised basement rectangular-plan (ext. dims c. 10.5m NW-SE x c. 4.3m NE-SW) former enclosed barracks\signal station associated with the signal station\tower network. Possibly\probably originally with a signal mast to site. 

The site is shown on the Ordnance Survey first ed. six-inch map, surveyed 1841-2, in its current form with an almost square enclosure with the bastions to each of the four corners. The building is shown against the NE wall of the enclosure and has a T-shaped plan, indicating that the external steps were drawn as being part of a singular structure. It is marked as ‘Old Light Ho.’ 

The site is one of four Enclosed Barracks of extremely similar form that were constructed around the coast of County Kerry (Kerrigan 1995, 162-3). Although some uncertainty remains about the age of the sites, all four of the enclosed barracks were likely constructed between 1808 and 1812. The sites seem to have been specifically related to the system of signal stations\towers constructed around the Irish coast between 1804 and 1806, added in areas where intervisibility between signal towers had proved difficult. It is not clear if these larger and more complex additions to the system were designed to house larger signal crews, or if they were designed to house the same size signal crews in more comfort than was to be found at the unpopular signal towers. The Enclosed Barracks were presumably abandoned by 1815, when the signal towers around the SW coast were decommissioned. 

Images:
KE105-004----.01 View of SW elevation of main body of building.
KE105-004----.02 Oblique view from the S 
KE105-004----.03 View of external steps serving entrance from the NW 
KE105-004----.04 View of annex to the SE from the SE
KE105-004----.05 View of rear elevation (NE)
KE105-004----.06 View from the NW
KE105-004----.07 Detail of alcove to interior
KE105-004----.08 Detail of corner fireplace at ground floor level to interior. 
KE105-004----.09 Context from the NW 1
KE105-004----.10 Context from the NW 2 

Latitude and Longitude: 51.779955 , -10.197213 

(I attach the list of accompanying photographs because I have no idea where to access them and they might help somebody else to do so!!)

Basically, what Stuart is saying is that this site was not a lighthouse but one of four glorified Napoleonic signal towers, certainly larger than the others, possibly because the location overlooked the entrance to Bantry Bay which the French had used in 1798.

But could it possibly have been the site of an old lighthouse, as Sloane maintains. Sloane's chronology is decidedly shaky but the first Ordnance surveyors were quite meticulous in their attention to detail and why would they call it a lighthouse when one wasn't there? Could an old square lighthouse with a vaulted roof have been incorporated into the new barracks? Could the barracks have incorporated a lighthouse? Could the stone from the lighthouse have been used to build the barracks? 

It also occurs to me that the location on Hogs Head would have been a perfect place to have a light to mark the southern entrance of Ballinskelligs Bay. 

Summing up then, we have the Chief Engineer of Irish Lights talking about a great lighthouse, now disused, on Hog's Head; and we have a location on Hog's Head marked as Old Lighthouse on the first and last Ordnance Survey maps. 

As I said, I'm not a historian but I suggest the site might be worth another look!