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 ...