The lighthouse and its pivotal role in Irish seafaring heritage is highlighted in a number of newly published books. By Lorna Siggins, Marine Correspondent
It has been described as "the greatest building in the world", a unique feat of design and engineering - and one that made the cover of the Scientific American. Were it on "land", perhaps it would have won a plethora of architectural awards and plaudits from UNESCO.
However, the Fastnet rock lighthouse isn't quite out of sight, out of mind, and is still serving its purpose for seafarers a century after its remarkable construction. Its continued survival off the south-west coast through the worst of Atlantic storms is now being celebrated with several new publications.
"No lighthouse keeper ever asked to be stationed at the Fastnet. And yet, very few... ever said that they did not enjoy it," former principal keeper, Mr John Noel Crowley, tells James Morrissey in A History of the Fastnet Lighthouse. Crowley, who was first posted out to the rock in 1958, was initially dismayed when he was directed back there in 1984. However, technology had improved, there was better shore communication and helicopter relief, and so he settled into the job and found that he preferred the harsher winter months.
"You could see the feel and restlessness in the sea as it seemed to change from a swirling green to a surging black mass and then starting to defy gravity by slashing and clawing up at the rock..." Crowley says. The sea swells would create "walls of water up to 30 feet high", forcing a quick check by staff of all the double doors and storm shutters.
Often, the waves would hit the kitchen windows, a good 120 feet above sea level, and the worst conditions could be witnessed after Christmas. "The big seas would come sailing up over the entire building like the field of horses in the Grand National. Up, up, up and over ! A moment's silence would follow immediately as the tower became completely covered in water - and then, the mighty, crashing thunderous sound of hundreds of tons of falling water and, a short time later, the noise of the wind and the sea all over again."
Morrissey, a Mayoman, former journalist and currently a director of a public relations firm in Dublin, first sighted the Fastnet in 1993 when he was crew on a boat participating in the Dublin to Dingle yacht race. He began researching, and received early assistance from former taoiseach, Charles J Haughey. Crucially, he secured permission to reproduce photographs taken a century ago by Sir Robert Ball, the astronomer and mathematician employed by the lighthouse body to assist with the optical development of lighthouse technology.
Ball's photographs were actually published by the Commissioners several years ago in For the Safety of All, a book which followed the 2001 exhibition of the collection in the National Photographic Archive. Many of the images were taken during annual tours of inspections of the lighthouses around the coastline, but a series also recorded the construction of Fastnet's "new" tower in 1903. Morrissey describes in detail the pioneering work of the tower's architect, William Douglass, engineer CW Scott who recorded progress, and foreman and master mason, James Kavanagh, who set every one of the 2,074 granite blocks shipped from Cornwall with his own hands and refused to go ashore while any work was being done.
It was, as Morrissey notes, one of the most adventurous, challenging and successful maritime projects in Europe of its day. A decision by Douglass to apply a system of "dovetail joggles", whereby no stone could be extracted until every stone above it had been removed, was crucial to bonding the entire structure.
The harsh life of the keepers, even after helicopters replaced hazardous boat reliefs, is recorded, and the author also has a chapter on the Fastnet yacht race which reached a nadir, with 15 deaths, in the unexpected storm of August, 1979. As part of his research, Morrissey spent a night on the rock with photographer, Michael McSweeney. Their host was the light's last principal keeper and first attendant after automation, Dick O'Driscoll.
The trio were waiting to be collected by helicopter the morning after, when Morrissey noticed O'Driscoll leaving a loaf of bread and a carton of milk on the watch room's outside window ledge. It was force of habit, - even though there have been no resident keepers since the last light, at Baily in Howth, was automated in March, 1997. If the helicopter couldn't land, there would always be enough for a cup of tea and a sandwich while awaiting the next attempt.
Richard Taylor, former technician with the Commissioners of Irish Lights, expands on the Fastnet's reputation as a "punishment station" in his personal account, entitled The Lighthouses of Ireland. The outpost off Mizen Head was in the same league as Blackrock, Co Mayo, the Maidens at the entrance to Larne harbour on the north-east coast, and Eagle Island, Co Mayo. "If any keeper stepped out of line or committed some serious indiscretion, he was sure to be sent to one of these," Taylor writes.
However, during his 44-year career with the service, Taylor became friends with a Clareman who served almost nine years on Fastnet by choice. MJ Crowley, better known as "Pa", resembled a mixture of "fearsome-looking pirate" and "benign polar bear" and had spent his early days at sea. While on the Fastnet, he was known to swim miles off the rock, and once dragged a 12-foot eel back and fried it up with onions for tea.
A man signed his domestic life away when he signed up to work on lighthouses; but at one stage entire families lived on certain postings, such as the Skelligs and Inishtearaght off the Kerry coast. Sadly, two small graves on Skellig Michael mark the last resting place for two lightkeeper's children.
Anecdotes about the unfortunate lot of those consigned to lightships - now outdated - and the resourcefulness of keepers like Bill Hamilton at Hook Head, Co Waterford, who made teeth for himself out of the handle of a knife, are recorded with much humour. Taylor admits to almost sinking the Daunt lightship off Co Cork when sent out to fix a fault. Having spent the first five days in his bunk, due to sea-sickness, he crawled down to the engine room and began dismantling the sea-cock in an attempt to effect the repair.
Two crewmen with him patiently told him that they were below sea level, and therefore removing the sea cock would not be so wise. However, when he ignored them, one of them grabbed him, while the other rushed upstairs for reinforcements. He returned to his bunk, stayed there until the relief boat was due, and had nothing but one bottle of Bovril for the duration.
He also survived a near-drowning off the Metal Man near Rosses Point, Co Sligo, when he missed a rung on the ladder and fell into the sea. Although lifejackets were "non-existent" in those days, the seamen with him had a boat hook aboard and fished him out. He had been seven minutes under the water and was lucky to survive.
When they eventually got him ashore, someone rang the head office in Dublin. "The first question asked was if the light was working... That's the worst of being expendable..."
The Taylor and Morrissey histories both reproduce that famous letter written about the late Brendan Behan's performance as a painter, when the writer was still employed by Irish Lights. "He is wilfully wasting materials, opening drums and paint tins by blows from a heavy hammer, spilling the contents which is now running out of the paint store door," D. Blakely, the principal keeper at St John's lighthouse off Co Down, wrote to head office on August 9th, 1950.
Behan "tramps" through everything and "his language is filthy", Blakely complained. "He is the worst specimen I have met in 30 years service. I urge his dismissal from the job now before good material is rendered useless and the place ruined."
Both books are invaluable additions to a growing canon of "lighthouse literature" - Bill Long and photographer, John Eagle, being recent authors, while the first in a series of work on navigational aids on this coastline was written by Robert Callwell as far back as 1863.
Were it not for lights and their keepers, there might have been far more fatalities off this treacherous 2,000-mile coastline which has witnessed "millennia" of seafaring activity, according to the authors of a new archaeological study of underwater sites and discoveries. Starting out with dugout boats dating back to the Mesolithic period, recovered from inland lakes and rivers, authors Colin Breen and Wes Forsythe of the University of Ulster's Centre for Coastal and Marine Research track the development of craft design through the centuries.
Naturally, the authors analyse the causes of one of this coastline's greatest maritime disasters, the scattering of the Spanish Armada in 1588. The majority of the Spanish wrecks remain unlocated, they note, but many place-names and stories relating to the recovery of objects attest to burial sites.
"Indeed, the Armada is so well known in coastal folklore that virtually every underwater find around the coast is attributed to the ill-fated, 16th century expedition," they state.
The Heritage Council has recently published a scoping document on Ireland's boats, which aims to raise awareness about and stimulate debate on the heritage issues relating to traditional craft, and it held a seminar on the subject last month in Co Offaly. However, much is required in terms of the shipwreck resource, according to Breen and Forsythe, and they believe dedicated programmes of site location and landscape mapping should expand.
"This is ultimately an archaeological and historical resource, and one that should be placed not only in a conservation framework, but also in a research one," they conclude.
A History of the Fastnet Lighthouse by James Morrissey is published by Crannóg Books, €28.
The Lighthouses of Ireland: A Personal History by Richard M Taylor is published by The Collins Press at €25.
Boats and Shipwrecks of Ireland by Colin Breen and Wes Forsythe is published by Tempus Publishing at £17.99 sterling.