Pete's Irish Lighthouses

  Patrick O Meara, in heroic pose, possibly on the Tuskar. Photo courtesy Liam O Meara Back in the day, when I had ludicrous notions that I could make it as a serious poet, I used to enter the odd poetry competition and, if feasible, attended the awards, whether I was nominated or not. One of my favourites was the annual Francis Ledwidge Poetry Awards competition, run essentially by Liam O Meara from Inchicore, a legend in that suburb for his work on Ledwidge, on poetry and on local history. Memories of Liam and those poetry nights came flooding back when I came across a Facebook post in which a Liam O Meara commented that his grandfather had served as a painter on Loop Head. Eager to learn more, I messaged him and we agreed to meet in Small Changes , a wine and coffee house on Emmet Road in Inchicore, despite the fact that this was deep in St Pat's territory. And yes, it was the same Liam O Meara! I have written previously about the Black family , a father and son and grandson pai...

  In the 1960s, Gulf Oil built large holding tanks on Whiddy Island that would temporarily store crude oil from the Gulf before it was shipped on around northern Europe. Supertankers (300,000 tons +) would arrive and deposit their vast cargoes, and slightly smaller ones (c.100,000 tons) would then arrive and fill up with oil for refineries like Southampton and Rotterdam. With such a vital commodity and multi-billion pound cargo, it was decided that a light needed to be placed at the end of the Sheep's Head peninsula to aid the increase in large ocean traffic to the pleasantly rural location.  At the same time, it was decided to increase the range of the light at Mizen Head. Large tankers would be able to plot their course using the RACON and the Radio Beacon at that station before being guided by the new light into Bantry Bay. The RACON in particular could be picked up by a ship 35 miles out to sea. During June 1968, all the materials needed for the construction of the lightho...