Pete's Irish Lighthouses

The non-nuclear Blackrock lighthouse Many lighthouse lovers in Ireland are aware that the tiny island of Rathlin O'Birne, just off the coast of Malin Beg in county Donegal, was the first and, so far, only Irish navigational light to be powered by nuclear energy, rather than the old, fuzzy sort. However, it was very nearly not so, as the original location was supposed to have been Blackrock (Mayo), our most distant light from the mainland, and the second-highest above sea level. (Kudos to anyone who knows the highest without looking it up. I made hen stumble over southern promontory (4,4)) In 1964, Irish Lights was contacted by the Atomic Energy Research Establishment in Harwell, Oxfordshire, about the possibility of converting one of its lights, Blackrock, to nuclear energy. Presumably, this was a pilot project; if it worked, others could have followed suit. Talks continued for a further six years. Several lighthouses were canvassed but the overwhelming favourite, Blackrock, messed...

  Difficult to get a photo of a Spanish or French fishing boat passing an Irish lighthouse, so here's the Glor na dTonn at Rotten Island (note the complete absence of brandy) From the Irish Times 15th June 1962 :- "A charge that some lighthouse keepers around the Irish coast were accepting presents of brandy from poaching trawlers as a reward for signals about the  pending  arrival of fishery protection corvettes, was made in the Dail yesterday. 'Mr Leneghan (Independent) said that there was mass poaching by French, Spanish and English trawlers. These gentlemen were usually equipped with large stocks of brandy and our coasts were well equipped with lighthouses, and the men in them were not averse to drinking brandy. If his information was correct, these gentlemen were able to signal to those foreign boats when the corvettes were coming in sight. 'Mr Tully (Lab) - I hope deputy Leneghan can prove that statement himself. If not, he should not have made it in the House w...