Fastnet Lighthouse is a

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

situated on the remote Fastnet Rock in the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the ...

. It is the most southerly point of Ireland and lies southwest of Cape Clear Island and from

County Cork County Cork () is the largest and the southernmost Counties of Ireland, county of Republic of Ireland, Ireland, named after the city of Cork (city), Cork, the state's second-largest city. It is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Munster ...

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 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 of more than 2% and silicon content around 1–3%. Its usefulness derives from its relatively low melting temperature. The alloying elements determine the form in which its car ...

with an inner lining of brick and was designed by George Halpin. Costing £17,390, the tower was tall with an 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 was installed, which electrically detonated a small charge of

guncotton Nitrocellulose (also known as cellulose nitrate, flash paper, flash cotton, guncotton, pyroxylin and flash string, depending on form) is a highly flammable compound formed by nitrating cellulose through exposure to a mixture of nitric acid and ...

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 at one point a 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 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 oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the Age of Discovery, it was known for se ...

. 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 dovetailed blocks of Cornish

granite Granite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phanerite, phaneritic) intrusive rock, 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 coo ...

was laid in June 1899. As well as these blocks, weighing 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 . 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 are 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 telemetry link to Mizen Head Lighthouse in

, and onwards by landline to the Irish Lights control centre at

Dún Laoghaire Dún Laoghaire ( , ) is a suburban coastal town in County Dublin in Ireland. It is the administrative centre of the county of Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown. The town was built up alongside a small existing settlement following 1816 legislation th ...

. 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), often described as being equivalent to one event (or Cycle per second, cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose formal expression in ter ...

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 transponder beacon) has transmitted the

Morse code Morse code is a telecommunications method which Character encoding, encodes Written language, text characters as standardized sequences of two different signal durations, called ''dots'' and ''dashes'', or ''dits'' and ''dahs''. Morse code i ...

for the letter G since its installation in 1994. In 1985, the lighthouse was struck by a

rogue wave A rogue wave is an abnormally large ocean wave. Rogue wave may also refer to: * Optical rogue waves, are rare pulses of light analogous to rogue or freak ocean waves. * Rogue Wave Software, a software company * Rogue Wave (band), an American in ...

about high."The Story of the Fastnet"
– ''

The Economist ''The Economist'' is a British newspaper published weekly in printed magazine format and daily on Electronic publishing, digital platforms. It publishes stories on topics that include economics, business, geopolitics, technology and culture. M ...

Magazine'' 18 December 2008

Fastnet Rock

Fastnet Rock () or simply Fastnet (possibly ), is a small

clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolinite, ). Most pure clay minerals are white or light-coloured, but natural clays show a variety of colours from impuriti ...

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 ro ...

islet with

quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The Atom, atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon–oxygen Tetrahedral molecular geometry, tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tet ...

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

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

. 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 British Isles. It is produced by the Met Office and broadcast by BBC Radio 4 on behalf of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency. The for ...

s transmitted by the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

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

yacht A yacht () is a sail- or marine propulsion, motor-propelled watercraft made 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 ...

ing races, the

Fastnet Race The Fastnet Race is a biennial offshore yacht race organized by the Royal Ocean Racing Club (RORC) of the United Kingdom with the assistance of the Royal Yacht Squadron in Cowes and the City of Cherbourg in France. The race is named after th ...

, a round-trip from

Cowes Cowes () is an England, English port, 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 b ...

on the

Isle of Wight The Isle of Wight (Help:IPA/English, /waɪt/ Help:Pronunciation respelling key, ''WYTE'') is an island off the south coast of England which, together with its surrounding uninhabited islets and Skerry, skerries, is also a ceremonial county. T ...

, around the rock and back to

Plymouth Plymouth ( ) is a port city status in the United Kingdom, city and unitary authority in Devon, South West England. It is located on Devon's south coast between the rivers River Plym, Plym and River Tamar, Tamar, about southwest of Exeter and ...

(from 2021 onwards, back to

Cherbourg Cherbourg is a former Communes of France, commune and Subprefectures in France, subprefecture located at the northern end of the Cotentin peninsula in the northwestern French departments of France, department of Manche. It was merged into the com ...

in France). It is also sometimes used as a mark for yacht races from local sailing centres such as Schull,

Baltimore Baltimore is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland. With a population of 585,708 at the 2020 census and estimated at 568,271 in 2024, it is the 30th-most populous U.S. city. The Baltimore metropolitan area is the 20th-large ...

, and Crookhaven.

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