Fastnet Lighthouse is a 54m high

lighthouse A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of physical structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses and to serve as a beacon for navigational aid, for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways. Lighthouses m ...

situated on the remote Fastnet Rock in the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...

. It is the most southerly point of

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel, the Irish Sea, and St George's Channel. Ireland is the s ...

and lies southwest of

Cape Clear Island Clear Island or Cape Clear Island (officially known by its Irish name: Cléire, and sometimes also called Oileán Chléire) is an island off the south-west coast of County Cork in Ireland. It is the southernmost inhabited part of Ireland and ha ...

and from

County Cork County Cork ( ga, Contae Chorcaí) is the largest and the southernmost county of Ireland, named after the city of Cork, the state's second-largest city. It is in the province of Munster and the Southern Region. Its largest market towns a ...

on the Irish mainland. The current lighthouse is the second to be built on the rock and is the tallest in Ireland.

First lighthouse

Construction of the first lighthouse began in 1853, and it first produced a light on 1 January 1854. The lighthouse replaced an early one built on Cape Clear Island in 1818, partly motivated by the loss of an American sailing packet, ''

Stephen Whitney Stephen Whitney (September 4, 1776 – February 16, 1860) was an American merchant. He was one of the wealthiest merchants in New York City in the first half of the 19th century. His fortune was considered second only to that of John Jacob Ast ...

'', in thick

fog Fog is a visible aerosol consisting of tiny water droplets or ice crystals suspended in the air at or near the Earth's surface. Reprint from Fog can be considered a type of low-lying cloud usually resembling stratus, and is heavily influ ...

during November 1847 on nearby West Calf Island causing the death of 92 of her 110 passengers and crew. The new lighthouse was constructed of

cast iron Cast iron is a class of iron– carbon alloys with a carbon content more than 2%. Its usefulness derives from its relatively low melting temperature. The alloy constituents affect its color when fractured: white cast iron has carbide impuri ...

with an inner lining of brick and was designed by George Halpin. Costing £17,390, the tower was tall with a high lantern structure on top, giving a total height of around . It had an oil-burning lamp of 38 kilocandelas; in contrast, modern lighthouses typically produce 1,300 kilocandelas. In 1883 an explosive

fog signal A foghorn or fog signal is a device that uses sound to warn vehicles of navigational hazards such as rocky coastlines, or boats of the presence of other vessels, in foggy conditions. The term is most often used in relation to marine transport. Wh ...

was installed, which electrically detonated a small charge of guncotton every five minutes. The tower proved to be too weak since gales shook it to the point that crockery was sometimes thrown off tables, and a 60 imperial gallon (273 L) cask of water lashed to the gallery above high water was washed away. Various steps were taken to strengthen the tower, including fitting a casing around the bottom section up to the second floor and filling it with stone, and the surrounding rock smoothed over. In 1865 the lower floors were filled in with solid material.

Second lighthouse

In 1891 the

Commissioners of Irish Lights The Commissioners of Irish Lights ( ga, Coimisinéirí Soilse na hÉireann), often shortened to Irish Lights or CIL, is the body that serves as the general lighthouse authority for Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland and their adjacen ...

had resolved that the light was not sufficiently powerful, particularly for the first landfall for many ships crossing the

Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...

. The replacement was constructed of stone, cast iron now being considered unsatisfactory – the whole of the nearby Calf tower above its strengthening casing had been carried away during a gale on 27 November 1881, although without loss of life. On the same day, the sea had broken the glass of the Fastnet Rock lantern. Fastnet view from top of rock during construction

Fastnet view from top of rock during construction

The new lighthouse was designed by William Douglass and built under the supervision of James Kavanagh. Construction started in 1897 with the levelling of the site, and the first of 2,047 Cornish

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained ( phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies un ...

dovetailed blocks was laid in June 1899. As well as these blocks, weighing 4,300 tons in total and with a volume of , a further of granite was used to fill the inside of the tower up to the level of the entrance floor above high-water mark. A small steamship, the ''Ierne'', was specially constructed for carrying the blocks out to the island, and Kavanagh personally set every stone, which weighed between 1¾ and 3 tons. The new lighthouse entered service on 27 June 1904 having cost nearly £90,000. The masonry tower is high, but the focal point of the light is above high-water mark. The base of the lighthouse is in diameter with the first course of stone below the high-water mark, and the first ten of the 89 courses built into the rock. The first floor of the original tower remains, on the highest part of the rock, having been left when it was demolished and converted into an oil store. The fog signal was changed to one report every three minutes in 1934 and from 1965 accompanied by a brilliant flash when operated during darkness. The original vaporised paraffin light was replaced with an electric one on 10 May 1969. At the end of March 1989, the lighthouse was converted to automatic operation. It is monitored and controlled using a

UHF Ultra high frequency (UHF) is the ITU designation for radio frequencies in the range between 300 megahertz (MHz) and 3 gigahertz (GHz), also known as the decimetre band as the wavelengths range from one meter to one tenth of a meter (on ...

telemetry link to Mizen Head Lighthouse in

, and onwards by landline to the control centre at

Dún Laoghaire Dún Laoghaire ( , ) is a suburban coastal town in Dublin in Ireland. It is the administrative centre of Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown. The town was built following the 1816 legislation that allowed the building of a major port to serve Dubli ...

. It produces a 0.14-second white flash every five seconds, with a nominal range of and a power of 2,500 kilocandelas. Since April 1978 in addition to being operated during darkness, the light is also used during poor visibility. In 1974 the explosive fog signal was replaced with an electric foghorn producing four blasts every minute at 300

hertz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose expression in terms of SI base units is s−1, meaning that o ...

with a nominal range of . Following a review of navigational aids, the fog signal was permanently shut down on 11 January 2011. The Racon –

radar Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance (''ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, Marine radar, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor v ...

transponder In telecommunications, a transponder is a device that, upon receiving a signal, emits a different signal in response. The term is a blend of ''transmitter'' and ''responder''. In air navigation or radio frequency identification, a flight trans ...

beacon – has been a morse G on the radar display since its installation in 1994. In 1985, the lighthouse was struck by a rogue wave about high."The Story of the Fastnet"
– ''

The Economist ''The Economist'' is a British weekly newspaper printed in demitab format and published digitally. It focuses on current affairs, international business, politics, technology, and culture. Based in London, the newspaper is owned by The Eco ...

Magazine'' 18 December 2008 On 16 October 2017, a wind gust of was recorded at the lighthouse, during a tropical storm, Hurricane Ophelia. This is an Irish record, based on measurements going back to the 1860s. The previous record was at

Malin Head Malin Head ( ga, Cionn Mhálanna) is the most northerly point of mainland Ireland, located in the townland of Ardmalin on the Inishowen peninsula in County Donegal. The head's northernmost point is called Dunalderagh at latitude 55.38ºN. It ...

during Hurricane Debbie in 1961.

Fastnet Rock

Fastnet lighthouse 2 Cape Clear (7181508092)

Fastnet Rock, or simply Fastnet, (possibly is also called ''Carraig Aonair'', meaning "lonely rock" in Irish). It is a small

clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4). Clays develop plasticity when wet, due to a molecular film of water surrounding the clay pa ...

slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock. ...

islet with

quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica ( silicon dioxide). The atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon-oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall chemical f ...

veins, and rises to about above the low water mark and is separated from the much smaller Little Fastnet to the south by a wide channel. Fastnet is known as "Ireland's Teardrop", because it was the last part of Ireland that 19th-century Irish emigrants saw as they sailed to

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and th ...

. Fastnet also gives its name to the sea area used by the

Shipping Forecast The Shipping Forecast is a BBC Radio broadcast of weather reports and forecasts for the seas around the coasts of the British Isles. It is produced by the Met Office and broadcast by BBC Radio 4 on behalf of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency. ...

s transmitted by the BBC. Fastnet Rock is used as the midpoint of one of the world's classic offshore

yacht A yacht is a sailing or power vessel used for pleasure, cruising, or racing. There is no standard definition, though the term generally applies to vessels with a cabin intended for overnight use. To be termed a , as opposed to a , such a pleasu ...

ing races, the Fastnet Race, a round trip from

Cowes Cowes () is an English seaport town and civil parish on the Isle of Wight. Cowes is located on the west bank of the estuary of the River Medina, facing the smaller town of East Cowes on the east bank. The two towns are linked by the Cowes Fl ...

on the

Isle of Wight The Isle of Wight ( ) is a county in the English Channel, off the coast of Hampshire, from which it is separated by the Solent. It is the largest and second-most populous island of England. Referred to as 'The Island' by residents, the Is ...

, around the rock and back to

Plymouth Plymouth () is a port city status in the United Kingdom, city and unitary authority in South West England. It is located on the south coast of Devon, approximately south-west of Exeter and south-west of London. It is bordered by Cornwall to ...

. It is also sometimes used as a mark for yacht races from local sailing centres such as

Schull Schull or Skull ( ; or ''Scoil Mhuire'', meaning "Mary's School") is a town in County Cork, Ireland. Located on the southwest coast of Ireland in the municipal district of West Cork, the town is dominated by Mount Gabriel (407 m). It has ...

Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic, and the 30th most populous city in the United States with a population of 585,708 in 2020. Baltimore was ...

, and

Crookhaven Crookhaven () is a village in County Cork, Ireland, on the most southwestern tip of the island of Ireland. With an out-of-season population of about sixty, it swells in the summer season to about four hundred, when the occupants of the seasonal ...

References

Sources

* Morrissey, James (2005). ''A History of Fastnet Lighthouse''. Columbia Press.
The Fastnet Lighthouse: Light on a lonely rock
''The Economist'' 18 Dec 2008 * C.W. Scott, History of Fastnet Lighthouses, Schull Books 2001 * R. Coates, 'Fastnet', ''Nomina'' 20 (1997), pp. 37–46
Fastnet Lighthouse Vital Statistics

External links