Pete's Irish Lighthouses

  The Kish lightship in the first decade of the twentieth century. To me this looks like the Cormorant but, hard to believe, I have been wrong in the past. Lightships were painted black until the 1950s, when red got the contract. B ack to 1902, the lightship on the Kish Bank, just outside the entrance to Dublin harbour, gained headlines worldwide when, on 8 th September of that year, she was sunk by the Royal Mail Steamer Leinster in dense fog. Neither party saw the other until a collision was unavoidable and the lightship – The Albatross – was practically split in two by the force of the collision.   The seven men aboard the stricken lightship – William Daly (Master), seamen William Duff, Patrick Langan, Michael Crowe, George Warren and Joseph Pluck and the carpenter, John Day – had been on board about a week and calmly and quickly lowered the lifeboat and rowed away. They were picked up by the Leinster and brought to Kingstown (Dun Laoghaire), seemingly none the wors...

  Sherkin Island lighthouse and the troublesome fog bell (I have no idea where this photograph came from) In less than ten days, I shall be heading down to the Mizen peninsula in West Cork for our annual hiking break and I hope to be getting up close and personal with the Copper Point lighthouse on Long Island and also Crookhaven light, one of the few that I haven't ticked off. Unfortunately our itinerary means it will be unlikely that I will get anywhere near Ireland's laziest island, Sherkin Island, and its cast iron lighthouse.  I have actually seen the lighthouse at Barrack Point twice - once from the Baltimore Beacon on the other side of the entrance to Baltimore Harbour and once from the Baltimore to Cape Clear ferry. But never close up. From around 1881, the Skibbereen and Baltimore Harbour Board were petitioned to erect a lighthouse at the entrance to Baltimore Harbour. A local priest and board member, Fr. Charles Davis, was the chief agitator for this. There was a n...

When I started visiting Irish lighthouses, they seemed a most unwelcoming lot. The yellow 'Trespassers will be shot' signs were often placed a long way up the roads to the lighthouse, thus ensuring you couldn't take photos from different angles. You got one shot from outside the gates and that's your lot. Now turn around and go away. (I must confess, I always saw the yellow signs as a challenge rather than a deterrent, the way Dougal viewed the red 'Do not press' button in the aeroplane. And it will always be on my conscience, if I had one) Slowly, though, the times are a-changing and CIL are starting to understand that a lot of people like lighthouses and there's a tourist potential there. Plus it's somewhere unusual and educational to bring the kids. Hook, Fanad, Loop Head, Mizen Head, Ballycotton and Valentia are now open to the public for at least most of the summer months and fantastic places they are too. However, the good news is that during lockd...

  When I first came across the lighthouse at Cultra , next to  Holywood in county Down, I had absolutely  no information on it at all. It was marked on an OS 1st edition map (1834) as being located on the quay at Cultra Harbour and on the 1854 2nd edition as being 'in ruins' but t'internet was strangely non-forthcoming on any description of this mysterious edifice. Once again, I am indebted to my equally mysterious friend, Nick from Holywood, for pointing me in the direction of a remarkable book called "Holywood county Down, Then and Now" by the Rev. McConnell Auld M.A., known to all and sundry as 'Con Auld,' whose list of achievements would fill a book on its own. The book is A4 size, landscape and includes practically everything there is to know about the small town on Belfast Lough. Cultra - the back of the beach - was owned by the Kennedy family since 1671 and was part of a large tract of the North Down coast acquired by that family. It is possible tha...

  Since I left school, nearly 45 years ago now, I don't think I have ever written a book review. There are a number of reasons for this.  Although the advice to writers has always been 'read, read, read,' I don't actually read much. The only books I do read are factual books, mainly involving local history.  Another reason is that I have always been suspicious of reviewers and critics. Either they are palsy-walsy with the person they are reviewing, in which case the review is impossibly laudatory; or they are trying to make a name for themselves with a witty turn of phrase or a damning put-down. It breaks my heart to see anyone - musician, author, actor - pilloried in the press by someone who has not the talent nor dedication nor creativity to produce anything original. However, I'm going to make an exception in this instance after coming across Tom Sigafoos's historical novel, The Cursing Stone, which, I believe, contains enough lighthouse content to warrant ...

  Map of Carrickfergus c.1680 shamelessly robbed from the Carrickfergus history website .  I remember in the days of my youth that I used to get excited by going to a gig by the Ramones or the Clash, by a girl acknowledging my existence or by my football team getting into the semi-finals of the Cup. Nowadays, it seems, I get my kicks from the possible discovery of a 370 year old lighthouse. To borrow a line from a Talking Heads song, " Well, how did I get here?" The common story about lighthouses in Ireland is that six lighthouses were patented by Sir Robert Reading in 1665 - Old Head and Charlesfort in Kinsale; Hook Head; two at Howth and one at Islandmagee. Before that, there were only ever two lighthouses - Hook and Youghal. The rest of the coast was dark. I've struggled to accept this for a long time. Doesn't make sense that shipowners would let their ships and their valuable cargoes founder for want of a simple harbour light. I suspect that places like Ardglass a...

The Inishkea Islands group lies a short distance off the Mullet peninsula in county Mayo and consists of two main islands - North and South - and a couple of outlying rocks. It is said they housed early Christian sites which later were abandoned and the islands were uninhabited during the Middle Ages before being repopulated later on in the millennium. There have been suggestions that the Inishkea islanders were anthropologically different from their brethren on the mainland, almost imbued with heroic, godlike qualities, strength and beauty, unbeatable at Twister, that sort of thing. In the nineteenth century, when there were no English speakers on the islands, they worshipped a stone, said to be the pillow of St. Columba, which was dressed in new flannel every year and which could calm stormy seas or raise a storm whenever a potential shipwreck appeared on the horizon. The stone was eventually broken in two and thrown into the sea by a zealous priest where it waits for Indiana Jones t...