Pete's Irish Lighthouses

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 ...