Pete's Irish Lighthouses

  The Coningbeg Lightship in 1903 This is a little bit long, so I have abridged it as much as I could without detracting from the thrust of the case (so to speak) Personally, I think the cold case team should have another look at this one. From the Wicklow News-Letter Saturday 18th January 1902 On Wednesday in the Nisi Prius Court No.2, Miss Margaret White, Kilmore Quay, county Wexford, sued John P. Wall, Inisheer, Arran Islands for breach of promise of marriage. Mr James O'Connor appeared for the plaintiff and Mr. W. Gibson appeared for the defendant. Mr. O’Connor, in opening the case, said the action was brought for breach of promise of marriage, aggravated by seduction. The defendant denied that he made the promise of marriage and said that a reasonable time had not elapsed before the action, and denied the seduction. The jury would have no doubt, when they heard the evidence, that the defendant promised to marry the plaintiff and that, last year, he seduced her, and he had now,...

I have been sitting on this lighthouse for a number of months now (not literally, of course, for it has long ceased to be) waiting for some long-promised information to be sent to me. However, though I have not given up hope, the chances of me dying before the information arrives are rising with each passing month, so I think it best to put pen to paper with what I have. (I hasten to add that a) I am really grateful to the person concerned for his offer of help and b) to my knowledge, my death is not imminent) The watercolour above is of a beautiful wooden lighthouse. To me, it looks slightly north European, Belgian or North Germany, maybe. Of course, it must be remembered that I am an idiot. The painting is by a famous maritime artist known as Alexander Williams and it hangs in the National Yacht Club in Dun Laoghaire. It was painted from somewhere along the South Wall of the River Liffey between the old Pigeon House Fort and Poolbeg Lighthouse, looking north west across the river. Th...

Two jolly little stories in the run-up to Christmas, both concerning lighthouse keepers firing fog-guns and both with the keepers' lives being saved by passing ocean-going liners. The first occurred down at the Tuskar lighthouse on the storm-swept south east coast of Ireland New Ross Standard 25th July 1891 There were questions asked in the House of Commons about this incident and the lack of proper communication between lighthouses and the mainland in cases of emergency but the reply was that the man would have been taken off by the Belle anyway, so the communications worked grand. Twenty years later, a similar accident occurred at the Rathlin lighthouse. There are currently three lighthouses on Rathlin (four, if you count the lower lighthouse at Rathlin East, below) but at the time there was only one (or two, ditto) Photo from the National Library The Strabane Chronicle 20th July 1912 Simply another danger for the lighthouse keeper to endure.

  Sadly, I have no picture of the lighthouse at the end of the Ballygeary Pier in Rosslare, so I will brighten up the page by a gratuitous photo of the current, very pretty lighthouse (above), which is the third lighthouse in Rosslare.  The first was at Rosslare Fort at the entrance to Wexford Harbour, long defunct, its circular foundations now lying under the sea. In between, was the lighthouse at the end of the Ballygeary Pier, which has been stated as being established in 1881, as per the Notice to Mariners below. I have only begun to research this light recently and don't have all the facts but seemingly it was wooden, possibly similar to the East Twin Light up in Belfast. It obviously was pulled down when the current light was established. I hope to write more about this light when I have more information (and anybody who can provide any, please get in touch!!) Suffice to say, that the pier was described as ill-fated. Built from The Point and extending 1000 feet out at ...

 It is over five years now since I visited the Calf Rock , which would definitely be one of my Great Lighthouses of Ireland, if it were intact. Sadly it is only a stump, a terrible reminder of the power of the sea. I  had cause recently to research an incident on the rock in 1869 when seven men were drowned and realised that I had no picture of this lighthouse. Not really surprising, seeing it was only in existence for fifteen years and in a very remote position too. However, I was able to find a couple of drawings, two from the pages of The Irish Builder and the third a sketch by Robert Callwell, a commissioner of Irish Lights, without whom we would have no pictorial representation of several of our long, lost lighthouses. The top two drawings appear to be from the south while the Callwell sketch appears to be from the north.  Wasn't she a beauty?

Model of Whitecastle pile light by Ken Doherty, built from a 1927 photograph, currently on display at the Inishowen Maritime Museum in Greencastle The lights of Lough Foyle have baffled me now for many a day, mainly because many of them are gone and there is very little in the archives about them. So, with a lot of help from local residents, Seamus Bovaird and Martin Doherty, I have tried to piece them together and record what little I know of them. In general, Lough Foyle is a large expanse of water, where the River Foyle, after flowing through the city of Derry (I use the term merely because it is shorter) and its outskirts, suddenly widens out as it nears the sea. Donegal is on the west side, co. Derry is on the east side. After partition, nobody thought to decide who had jurisdiction over what but now the Lough is jointly administered. The main channel for vessels ran along the Donegal coast and lights were erected by the Derry Harbour Board to warn ships from straying too close to...

  The remarkable sketch above is a detail of a drawing in the National Library of Ireland. The title of the piece is "Beacon Towers Erected by the Reverend Charles Gayer 1847 (Entrance to Dingle Harbour)" and the National Library have somehow decided that the artist was Samuel Watson (1761-1802) who obviously dabbled in clairvoyance as well as art. To me, it has more than a hint of Terry Gilliam about it. I have written about these Dingle daymarks before ( here ) but in my naivety had thought they had only been three in number.  The tower on the top left hand side is atop Carhoo Hill and is known locally Eask Tower. It originally stood 27 feet tall and was solid in structure, with a hand pointing in the direction of the entrance to the harbour. At the turn of the twentieth century it was increased in height to 40 feet and given a new hand. It is the only one that is relatively intact. Eask Tower (the Dalek) The tower on the right hand side of the sketch is on top of Beenbawn ...