Mutton Island Lighthouse in County Galway

The Galway Civic trust are undertaking the restoration of Mutton Island Lighthouse and Keepers Cottage. A castle on the island was demolished to facilitate the lighthouse when it was built in 1815. The Scanlan Family manned the lighthouse in the 1940s and 50s and much of the information we have on the lighthouse is due to them. The Galway Fleming family were contracted to provide relief to Mutton Island in their púcan boat. A series of flags illustrated the requirements of the island to the mainland. The Island was largely self-sufficient however. The last keepers left the island in 1958 when the light became automated. The light was then turned off in December 1977 after 160 years of service.

Kilcredaun Lighthouse, County Clare

The short squat-looking lighthouse at Kilcredaun was built in 1827 . The light was converted to acetylene gas in 1929, allowing for it to go for periods unmonitored and was then converted to electricity. It became fully automatic in 1991, with an attendant living on site. The light was monitored via a wireless link to the CIL offices in Dublin.

The light was turned off and permanently discontinued in March 2011 after operating for over 187 years, although all of the obsolete equipment has been left in place. A stroll around the grounds of the Lighthouse allows for beautiful views of the Kerry Coastline and mountains and the iconic Rehy hill.

Oyster Island Lighthouse, Rosses Point, county Sligo

Two lights were established on Oyster island in 1837 but the one you see now dates from 1893. It became a rear leading light with the metal man in 1932 and was eventually converted from acetylene to propane in 1979 and then to solar in 2003. 

In 2007 at the height of the boom, the island (in part) came up for sale at a whopping 750k. The Island was famous for its oyster fishery, with beds covering an area of seventy acres. The Island was at the centre of a major story in 1864 when the beds were raided by eight boatloads of men and twenty-five thousand oysters were taken.
In 1841, the population of Oyster Island was 28, mostly lighthouse employees and their families, but this figure had dropped to 19 in 1861. The population gradually decreased and on Census Day, 1986, the Island had one solitary inhabitant.

The Tower of Lloyd, Kells county Meath.

“I’m looking at the river, but I’m thinking of the sea.”

A little digression today; 

Randy Newsman’s words could have been written for the tower of Lloyd. A lighthouse that finds itself stranded twenty miles from the ocean. 

Built in 1791, the Kells lighthouse as it’s locally known was never meant to steer ships home, but instead was used to view horse racing and the hunt and was erected by the 2nd Earl of Bective in memory of his father. What should be a major tourist attraction just outside the hometown of the book of Kells is unfortunately used as a transmission tower and closed to the public.