Greenore Beacons

 Just a couple of the assorted beacons located off Greenore on the south side of Carlingford Lough. The area is notorious for shoals and sandbanks.

Greenore Lighthouse (revisited)

 About seven years since I drove to Greenore at the far end of the wonderfully picturesque Cooley peninsula to visit this lighthouse.The lighthouse is easy to find - you come in on to the front in Greenore and its right there peeking out at you over a whitewashed wall like the cartoon face in the Kilroy Woz Ere graffiti.

The lighthouse seems pretty untouched since 2007, probably structurally sound but needing surface work. The keepers cottagers though seem to be in a pretty parlous state. No idea who owns it, if anyone. It seems to be located within its own little compound probably accessed through the dock area which was locked on my visit. I managed to get the photo above by hauling a nearby breeze block to the wall and standing on it.

 Built by George Halpin Senior in 1830, this lighthouse stands a mere 36 feet high and was built to highlight the southern entrance of Carlingford Lough and also Greenore Port, which is actually the only privately owned port in the Republic. Greenore itself is pretty tiny with less than 1000 inhabitants.

 The light was discontinued in 1986 and is slowly being left to its own devices.

Dundalk Pile Light (again)

 Bit disappointed that I couldn't seem to get these photos as sharp as when I went in February. It was fairly late evening and dusk approaching so that may have been the cause of it. Actually, when I arrived at the coast via a small side road on the Cooley peninsula, it took me a while to locate the light with the naked eye.

 It also took me a while to realise that the black dots on the lights were in fact birds gathering for the final twilight farewell before heading off for the night and not some fancy new decoration. Apparently it used to drive the nearby residents mad that the fog signal would go off when there was a complete absence of fog until they discovered that it was cormorants that were triggering the fog signal!

 The lighhouse was designed by the blind Belfast engineer Alexander Mitchell and was first exhibited in 1855. Due to the shifting nature of the sands in Dundalk Bay, the lighthouse has in fact moved around a bit on the shallows it is supposed to warn against, going from the north side to the middle and basically doing its own crazy dance around the bay

Below is a navigation beacon which seems to be pretty close to the light but is probably quite a distance away as you can't really get a perspective from the shore.

Dundalk drowning tragedy

Again I am indebted to Barry Pickup for drawing my attention to this tragedy. Barry, who spent his early years in Blackrock co. Louth, is also responsible for the photograph above, situated, in Barry's own words, "at Soldiers' Point (Dundalk) with the Cooley Peninsula and Bellurgan in the background -  a very scenic location, which is more than can be said for the eastern side of the ship channel."
Normally, when we think of lighthouse tragedies, we normally think of the construction workers working under difficult conditions or lighthouse keepers and assistants succumbing to the wrath of the elements. This double tragedy, which happened back in 1936, falls into neither category but harks back to a time when the lights in Dundalk Bay - and the Foyle, the Boyne etc - had to be manually lit every evening. In my innocence, I had always thought this was the job of the lighthouse keeper.
The following story, which appeared in the Argus on the 70th anniversary of the sad events, I have lifted verbatim from that venerable newspaper.

08 February 2006


Friday marks the 70th anniversary of the death of two Dundalk men who were drowned as they went about their job of lighting the lamps which guided ships into Dundalk Harbour.The two men, James Woods, aged 40 and John Lambe, aged 42, both from Quay Street, lost their lives after going out in a gale force wind on February 10th, 1936.Sarah Murphy, the great granddaughter of James Woods, says that the tragedy is still remembered by families in the Quay area.

“A monument was erected in their memory at Soldier’s Point on the 60th anniversary of their deaths,” she says, adding that it was greatly appreciated by the families of the two men.
At the time of the tragedy, the men were described as martyrs who had risked their lives to prevent ships from being wreaked as they made their way into Dundalk Harbour.
Sarah Murphy from Ashbrook, a great granddaughter of James Woods, has carried out research into the tragedy which claimed the lives of the two men.
“I decided to find out as much as I could about it and to put it into a book for my grandfather’s 80th birthday, two years ago,” she says.
Her grandfather Jimmy had to leave school and go out to work in order to support the family after his father was drowned.
“The story is part of my family history and also a part of the history of Dundalk Quay,” she says. “This story has been told to every child around the Quay for the last seventy years and will go on for many more.”
Referring to contemporaneous newspaper accounts of the tragedy and documents from the Harbour office, Sarah has pieced together events which led to the men’s untimely demise.
Both men were pilots but were also contracted to the Harbour Commission to light the lamps marking the five miles of channel leading into Dundalk harbour.
This entailed going out in a boat to light the twelve oil lamps.
“This was something that they had done every evening, but this evening was different from the rest” says Sarah. “The weather had been bad and there was something brewing up in the sky.”
There was a strong East-South-East gale blowing as they set out around 3.50pm and would normally have returned by 7pm. The Harbour Master Captain Higgins ordered a search to begin when they hadn’t appeared by 11pm, and volunteers from the Quay area joined Gardai from Bridge Street Station.
The search went on for hours through some of the worst weather ever seen in the town, with it being reported at the time that the searchers were up to their waists in water.
In the morning the men’s boat was found about two miles to the west of Soldiers Point. While the mast was in it, the oars, rudder, anchor and tiller were missing.
The men continued the desperate search for the lamp lighters and found that they had managed to light several of the beacons before their boat was swamped by the waves.
Their bodies were found within 200 yards of each other near the flood gates at Soldier’s Point, about a mile and a half from the Quay.
It was said that the watch that was found on my great-grandfather had stopped at 5.15 and that this was the time that the tragedy had happened,” says Sarah.
The funerals of the men at St. Patrick’s Cathedral were described “as the occasion of a demonstration of public sympathy such as Dundalk as rarely, if ever, witnessed, Practically the whole of the townspeople joined in the procession or stood in silent sympathy as it passed.”
The cortege was headed by some three hundred riverside workers, followed by the Harbour Commissioners and clergy.
Both men left widows and young children behind them.
Sarah’s great-grandfather was survived by his mother Annie, his wife Daisy and six children, Mary,14 years, who died shortly afterwards, Jimmy, 12, Kathleen, 9, Joan 8, Angela 6, and baby Christy.
John Lambe was survived by his wife and nine children, Peter 16 years, Kitty, 17, Peggy 13, Mary, 11, Shelia, 9, Geraldine 8, John 5, Bridget, 3 and baby Rose.
Tributes to the two men were paid by members of the Harbour Commissioners who held a special meeting to extend sympathy to their families.
It was stated at that meeting that there had been some discussion in harbour office on the Monday of the storm as to whether they should go out to lights or not, and the opinion had been expressed that perhaps it would not be necessary due to the extraordinary severe gale blowing. However, the two men had said that it was their duty and they were going to do it in all risks as they were concerned about the safety of vessels going into the harbour.
It was stated at the inquest that, both being strong fit men who were good swimmers, there was the possibility that one of the men might have saved himself if he had abandoned the other, but that anyone knowing one or other of them knew that while there was a breath of life left they would not abandon a colleague.
A fund was set up in the town to help the widows and orphans of the two men.
“It was a very sad story,” says Sarah, who discovered during her research that it was one of many drowning tragedies which marks Dundalk’s sea-faring history.

Dundalk Pile Light

The last time I was up in the Dundalk area in 2011, I bemoaned the fact that I thought I ought to have been able to see Blackrock Pile Light from the sea front, yet when I got there, there was no sign of it. (I managed to get instead a hazy photo from down along the Cooley peninsula)
I received a very nice email today from Barry Pickup, along with the fantastic photo above. 
Barry says, "I spent my early years up to age seven in a seafront house at Blackrock, Co Louth, and I was often lulled to sleep by its  flashing red light and the sound of the tide. I saw your comment about how difficult it is to see the structure from Blackrock - you must have been there on a hazy day as it is  visible on a clear day. 

I took the attached picture of it from aboard the SS Waverley paddle steamer many years ago ( I forget the date!) which operated Dublin North Wall - Dundalk Harbour & return." 

Built in 1855 by the blind Belfast engineer Alexander Mitchell, screwpile lighthouses were specifically designed to be built in sandy, silty areas where there was no foundation for a conventional light. 

Further information on the light may be found here.

Thanks again Barry!

Aleria Lighthouse

 Two and half years since I was here last This is Aleria Lighthouse marking the northern entrance of the River Boyne and the gateway to the port of Drogheda.

 These photos were taken just after sunrise and just after high tide. I had hoped to get the green light flashing but, though I saw it on my approach, by the time I reached it, it had stopped.

 As mentioned previously, I had originally tried to find this light by hugging the north bank of the Boyne from Drogheda but that way lay fear and despair. Besides, the light lies at the end of an unwalkable breakwater, so it is actually much better to get a view from the south bank. If driving from Bettystown, coming into Mornington, the road will bend around to the left (west). Take the lane on your right (east) and follow it down to the car park. From there it is a short walk through the dunes to the beach

 This light is operated by the Drogheda Port Authority and is listed as having been built in 1936. However, a report from the Dublin Port Authority after inspecting the Boyne lights in 1864, says that "the first light on the entrance of the river, under the control of the Harbour Board, is a green light and placed on the north side, the lamp of which is attached to the seventh perch" The entrance of the Boyne has several smaller but similar towers. The Inspection Committee of 1864 were quite astonished that the beacons hung from the side of these towers were lit at nightfall but were not re-lit when they had burned out!

Dundalk Light

Like a big spider sitting in the middle of Dundalk bay, this is one of only three screwpile lighthouses in Ireland, the others being at Spit Bank and at Moville. It was built by Alexander Mitchell in 1855.
This one is by far the furthest from the shore, hence the hazy picture. In fact, according to the road map, it looked as though it should be visible from Blackrock, near Dundalk but though I parked up on the front, I couldn't see it at all. It was only after driving around and onto the Cooley peninsular that it came into view. Actually, I probably stopped a bit early (where the road skirts the sea and is joined by the R174.) I think I should have carried on up to Giles Quay - it might have been a bit nearer.

Aleria (Drogheda) Lighthouse, Drogheda

Another spectacular failure to locate a lighthouse. The Lighthouse Directory says it is "located at the end of a rubblestone jetty on the north side of the entrance of the River Boyne." Preliminary mapwork was not hopeful as there appeared to be no roads going anywhere near the entrance of the Boyne on the north bank. I drove to the village of Baltray and then down a track, which was really one big pothole interspersed with little bits of laneway.
After about 1km of this, I seriously began to worry for the underside of the car, my exhaust and my tyres. I have a Toyota Yaris, not a bloody Freelander. I stopped, got out and walked on another half a mile or so but could still see no sign of the object of my search, so turned around and came back.
The picture above is of one of the many beacons that mark the Boyne from Drogheda Port to the mouth. They reminded me of the monastic beehive huts found on Skellig Michael.

(Found this lighthouse later. See here)

Clogherhead Lighthouse

Okay, hunt the lighthouse. According to the Lighthouse directory, the light in Clogherhead is "mounted on a two storey concrete and metal pier building" Well, after accosting two early morning hikers on Clogherhead Strand - seeing nothing that resembled a light - I was informed that the pier was a mile further down the road.
On arrival there, I could see nothing that resembled a light. The picture above is of the only two-storey building on the pier (and yes, it is metal and concrete) but there was nothing that fitted the description of a light. Two fishermen on the pier scratched their heads. Another local said the pier had only been restored about a year ago, but he couldn't remember a light ever having been there.

Greenore Lighthouse, co. Louth

Actually inside the dock area and so only viewed over a whitewashed wall