Pete's Irish Lighthouses

R. Polly; J. Campbell; R. Nelson; P. McMahon; R.G. Hamilton; P. Barry; J.A. Martin; T. Glanville; G. McCurdy; L. Jones I have no idea where I came across the picture above. Its on my pc entitled Mew cupboard , so I presume forty years of keepers left their names there for posterity. Maybe they couldn't find the visitors' book? On Inishtrahull, a couple of years ago, Irish Lights were burning a load of furniture from the keepers' dwellings to safeguard the integrity of the dwellings. Thankfully somebody at least managed to take a photo of some more lightkeeping graffiti on the back of a wardrobe: - J. Cleary 1966/70; Jas. Walsh 1929; John Walsh 1929 - 1935 James Walsh 1924 There is also, apparently, a flat slab facing the sea in front of the house on Mutton Island, on which has been carved the name "D. Hawkins." Unfortunately there were two lightkeepers named Daniel Hawkins, one born in 1864. Or it could have been a child of either of them.

  Tern Island - facing the onslaught for sixty years  Tern Island is a little-known lighthouse on the west coast of Ireland. Sorry, I'll start again. Tern Island is a little, known lighthouse on the west coast of Ireland. It is small, (under fifty acres in total area), and faces some of the worst weather in the world. Yet, despite its size and isolation, no shipwreck has ever taken place in its sphere of operation. Built of concrete in the 1960s, it was designed and constructed by keeper Gerry Rohu. Remarkably, this was his first foray into lighthouse construction and only the approaching automation of lights around the coast curtailed his promising career. It is in fact one of the only two lights around the coast that cannot be viewed from the mainland, Tearaght being the other. Out of sight and out of mind, Tern Island has very much gone under the radar (about forty feet under it) for many years. When the Slyne Head East light was discontinued in 1898, it was felt that parts...

It was doubtless unfortunate for aerial photographer Dennis Horgan that his stunning new hardback book should be released at roughly the same time as the spin-off book from the Great Lighthouses of Ireland television series, with all its money and advertising that ensured it was a good Christmas seller. I haven't actually seen the David O'Hare book yet, (despite the publicity) though I've heard very good things about it. But it is slightly unfair on Horgan that his superlative photographs probably came off second best in the Christmas market. For, make no mistake, the photography is incredible, well-framed and making good use of the hinterland. It is a shame that the finest photo in the book, (in my uneducated opinion) a stunning two-page spread of the Mizen peninsula from Mounts Gabriel and Knocknaphuca over to the Sheep's Head, should suffer from the Mizen station and bridge disappearing down the centre-fold of the book but that is being churlish. Let's face it, ...

Cleggan Point (photograph Richard Sharpe)  I have been neglecting concrete box lighthouses for a long time now. I know a lot of people - my long suffering wife included - do not rate them as 'proper' lighthouses, probably because they aren't actual houses but they have helped enormously in providing safe passage for those at sea and, like Inshirrer, Wyon Point, Inishnee and Ravedy Island, are often situated in stunning locations. It seems most, if not all, of them are located between Galway Bay and the Foyle or from Loop Head to Malin Head, as they might say on the weather forecast. But yes, they completely lack architectural merit. Judging by the photograph above, by Richard Sharpe, the light at Cleggan Point, or Cleggan Head, looks to be of a similar construction to the Fastnet, though I doubt it took seven years and 2,074 granite blocks to complete. But the courses did begin at the bottom of an incline and grew in size as the courses accumulated. And the current lighthou...

  Mother and Baby lighthouse, Rathlin East It is over fifteen years since I first visited Rathlin Island and I am ashamed to say I never really rated the East light, (or lights, I should say). The West light is spectacular and a tremendous feat of engineering and the seabirds on the surrounding cliffs are worth the visit alone. Little Rue Point is the underdog but the wonderful walk out to it, slowly leaving behind all traces of civilisation, is a delight in itself and its position on the water's edge, lord of all it surveys, strikes a chord.  Rathlin East, yes, its a nice enough light, but nothing special. The oldest of the three but nothing remarkable about it... It took the Association of Lighthouse Keepers trip in October to show me the error of my ways. Of course, it helped that we were given access to the lantern and the balcony. The views in all directions are incredible, to the islands of Scotland and along the cliffs both westward and southward. You could spend hours ...

  The East Twin light 1946. The house was built in 1925, shortly after the events in this post. The original light was a large triangle. Many lighthouse enthusiasts will be familiar with the IRA raids on Irish lighthouses in the late 1910s / early 1920s. Remote and difficult to protect, light stations such as Mine Head, Roancarrig, Hook and even the Fastnet, were raided by Republicans. They were mainly interested in the gun cotton which was used to fire the fog cannons but they wouldn't turn up their noses to personal hand guns and rifles, binoculars, telescopes etc. Such was the regularity of these raids, that the lighthouses had to withdraw their fog signalling service until normality was resumed. One armed, sectarian raid on a lighthouse, though, did not fit into the above template. Redmond 'Edward' Doran was a Catholic and keeper of the two East Twin lighthouses in Belfast Harbour.  In one of the houses, he resided and the other it was his duty to maintain. Although boa...

  Rock Lighthouses of Britain and Ireland (Fastnet on the cover) Way back in the halcyon days of 1983, when lightkeepers still roamed the earth, a young man named Chris Nicholson brought out a remarkable book called "Rock Lighthouses of Britain." Instantly regaled as a classic and the seminal work on the subject, it was remarkable in both the detailed research on all the lighthouses featured and the stunning photographs, many of them never seen before. Such was its success that it has been reprinted - a very rare thing for a lighthouse book and one that lesser writers such as myself can only yearn for - more than once and two further editions were brought out in 1995 and 2006, both with updated information and even more stunning photographs. Despite this achievement, the book had one slight drawback to Irish lighthouse enthusiasts like myself. Only featuring maritime navigation off the coasts of one part of the archipelago, the main part of our shared island group - Ireland ...