Pete's Irish Lighthouses

The Tuskar Rock. One of the first Irish lighthouses to be built by the Ballast Board and its inspector, George Halpin, way back in 1815. Its been standing guard on its treacherous rock for over 200 years and is as much a national monument as an aid to navigation. The only problem with it, is that its not a great photographic subject. Just that little bit too far off the coast of Rosslare unless you have a camera that costs as much as a month's rent in Ballsbridge. And there are no boat tours out to the Tuskar, even though I imagine they'd be very popular. However, although Mohammed can't get to the mountain, thanks to Wexford resident, Damian Mcaleenan, the mountain has obligingly swum up to Rosslare and waltzed up the Dublin road in search of that esteemed gentleman. I wrote last year   about plans by the Rosslare Municipal District to install a replica of the Tuskar on the Ashfield Cross Roundabout on the otherwise uninteresting main road out of the port. In that article,...

The Newry River front light (tended by Tom Boyle?) There have been a lack of posts here recently as I try to put some manners on the Eagle Island book so, just to give myself a break from it, I decided to try and sort out the Boyles and O'Boyles, prompted by a Facebook post from Phil Boyle. The earliest Boyle I have is Charles Boyle, (Keeper 20) who was born in county Donegal around 1840. His father was a farmer and he joined the Ballast Board (the precursor of Irish Lights) in May 1866. He was in Mine Head in 1871, where he met his wife, Mary Power. They married in 1875 when he was stationed at Poolbeg in Dublin. He was at Drogheda East and West in 1881, on Straw Island  on the Aran Islands from at least 1882 to 1885 (with Mary as his Female Assistant) and Rotten Island in 1901. He retired to Killybegs and died in 1929. One of his sons, Mick Boyle (144) became a keeper. Born in Mine Head in 1876, he joined the firm in 1897. One of his first stations was Eagle Island. He married ...

Eagle Island 1970s (photo by Alex Hamilton) Note the pre-circumcised lantern. And paint on the walls. As some of you may be aware, I've been banging on about writing a book on Eagle Island for a couple of years now. I was hoping that the long-promised Irish Lights archives might have come out online, or even the establishment of a reading room to access them but, at this stage, I suspect we'll be celebrating Ireland winning the World Cup sooner. Anyway, the book is largely complete now. Over 120,000 words about fourteen acres of land. I still have a couple of people I need to talk to and a lot of proof-reading to do but its more or less in its final shape. The Queen of Scotchport arriving at the south landing 1932 (photo courtesy Eamon McAndrew) However, I am still happy to talk / correspond with anybody who might have any knowledge of the island, however small or quirky or seemingly insignificant. Topics include, but are not limited to: former keepers, tradesmen, technicians, ...

  Roches Point 1862 Roches Point sits at the entrance of one of the largest natural harbours in the world - Cork - and, naturally enough was regarded as one of the major Irish lighthouses of the nineteenth century. It was so necessary that, in 1832, the Ballast Board decided that the light built there in 1817 was too small for the job, so they took it down, brick by brick, and shipped it off to Duncannon in county Wexford, and replaced it with a larger lighthouse. It was, however, not so important as to waste the expense of a second keeper at the light. From 1817 to 1861, Roches Point was a one-keeper station, the sole keeper being expected to stay alert and vigilant during the 14 hours of winter darkness, to attend to all the repairs and painting and cleaning.  Atkinson painting c. 1848 For nearly twenty of those years, the keeper at Roches Point was a guy called Bradley Sole, who had been born in Deal in Kent in 1812. Eight miles further down the coast he would have been a D...

I came across this unattributed poem in Beam 11.2 (1979-80) I'm assuming it was written by somebody in the Lighthouse Depot, at the end of his tether trying to figure out what 'the yoke at the end of the yoke' meant.   A Tale of Repairs The P.K. gazed with heavy frown Upon his diesel, broken down, And hastened to his Radio Phone               to get repairs. He told the Mizen of his woe, About the fog (he had to blow) But not a number did he know               nor seem to care. "The part I want," he wisely said "is hollowed out and painted red. I had the number in my head                but I forget. It holds the thingimibob in place About an inch from the long brace That fastens to the big main base,               and keeps it set." "They'll surely know the part I mean, It broke before on this machine. The what-you-may...

This is an Irish lighthouse blog and in all the years I've been writing it, I have never featured a lighthouse from the USA or indeed from Liechtenstein, Uzbekhistan or the Central African Republic. So this is a first and probably an 'only.' My thanks go to Carissa, one of the students at Fuller's Library in New Hampshire. They wrote to me a while ago, requesting information on lighthouse sites I would recommend to help them with a maritime project they were doing. I sent them back a list I put together and wished them well. One of the lighthouse sites that I failed to include was this one  which features a wonderful graphic of 100 lighthouses of the USA, together with a footnote about the oldest, the tallest etc. Carissa thought I would like this chart and, through one of her tutors, Mrs Skye Olley, forwarded it on to me.  I have to admit it is a terrific graphic. I have seen only about five of the hundred and it has certainly whetted my appetite to visit some more. It...

  The roseate terns for which Rockabill was famous. Evidently they weren't there in the early 1900s I came across this piece recently in the Irish Naturalist Vol 18 No.3 (1909), which I heartily recommend for a spot of light reading unless, like me, you keep getting confused by Naturalists and Naturists. The piece is prefaced by a person called R.H. Scovell who was the type of scientist who probably liked to keep his (or her) clothes on. R.H. was interested in bird migration and came across our old friend Benjamin Robert Jeffers , a lightkeeper and Open Brethren, who, with his dog, saved a bunch of people from drowning off Straw Island six years later. Benjamin, who was the keeper at Rockabill at the time, offered to copy out extracts from his journal that mentioned birds on the 'Bill and these extracts were published in the Irish Naturalist, once B.R. had established it wasn't a nudie mag. I reproduce them in full. Nov 10, 1906 - Our larder was replenished last night to t...