State contributes £500,000 to restore 8 lightkeepers' houses

Lightkeepers at 86 stations around the coast may have been made redundant by automation, but a use has been found for some of their former haunts.

Eight lightkeepers' houses at five locations are to be restored as part of the State's contribution to mark the millennium.

The National Millennium Committee has approved a grant of £500,000 for the initiative, which will be undertaken by the Irish Landmark Trust.

The trust is an all-Ireland charitable conservation body, which was founded in 1992 to rescue worthwhile buildings from neglect.

Two of the five locations are in the North, at Black Head, Co Antrim and St John's Point, Co Down. The other three are at Galley Head, Co Cork; Cromwell Point, Valentia Island, Co Kerry; and Loop Head, Co Clare.

The trust aims to lease the buildings from the Commissioners of Irish Lights for a nominal fee, restore them to their original state without altering any of their distinctive features, and then make them accessible to the public - both as holiday homes and through open days. The revenue generated from this will be used for continuing maintenance, the trust says.

Presided over by Mr Nicholas Robinson, the Irish Landmark Trust has already restored property at Wicklow Head's first lighthouse, and is involved in five other locations.

Announcing details of the scheme at a reception at Wicklow Head yesterday, the chairman of the National Millennium Committee and Minister of State to the Taoiseach, Mr Seamus Brennan, said it would not only secure the future of these tangible links to a maritime past, but would also guarantee that the five famous headlands, and their flora and fauna, would not be lost to private interest.

Mr Robinson, trust president, expressed his delight at the award. "The powerful symbolism of these enduring headland properties that have guided our island's shipping over the centuries adds to their appropriateness as a millennium project," he said.

Both Mr Brennan and Mr Robinson paid tribute to the Commissioners of Irish Lights for the vision they had shown in supporting the initiative.

The trust hopes to start restoration work at two of the five sites in November - Black Head, Co Antrim, and Galley Head, Co Cork. The projected cost of the scheme, including lease, construction, fees and fittings, is estimated at £700,000.