The Fastnet Lighthouse

 

My decision to paint the Fastnet Lighthouse on the East Pier in August 2024 was greatly influenced by a strong Wicklow connection to the story of the construction of one of Ireland's most iconic lighthouses.

James Kavanagh from Summerhill, Wicklow Town was the foreman and head stone mason in the building of the second Fastnet Lighthouse from August 1896 to June 1903, after the first lighthouse was destroyed by a combination of hurricane winds and floods over a decade earlier.

A charismatic leader of men, James spent up to 10 months each year on the isolated and perilous Rock Island off Crookhaven, County Cork overseeing the 7-year building project in one of the most challenging and hazardous environments of the Atlantic Ocean. 

He was also responsible for the safety of his workforce insisting that each worker in his team would wash himself and air his bed linen every day, and that the barracks was scrubbed daily in order to minimise sickness. There were no fatalities over the period of the project, although two of his men lost an eye, and another broke a leg.

The workers, who were paid two shillings and sixpence per day for a nine-hour shift, were given an extra shilling per day for this posting. Their conditions were so cramped that they sometimes shared three to a bunk, and began their shift at 5am.

The construction of the lighthouse was a truly mammoth task. A total of 2074 specially-selected granite blocks from Cornwall in England were brought over to Crookhaven, the shore depot for the lighthouse project, and from there to the Rock site by the Commissioner of Irish Lights steam ship, the 'Ierne'. 

The stones weighed between 1.75 and 3 tons, and were physically hoisted from a platform mainly by manual labour with the aid of a long winch over a series of 89 courses. James, wearing his distinctive white work jacket, personally oversaw the setting of each of these granite blocks.

The stones were put in place using a dovetail joggle system that bonded the entire structure into a virtual monolith, as no stone can possibly be extracted until every stone above it has been removed. The system was designed by Nicholas Douglass while working on the Guernsey Lighthouse. His son, William Douglass, was the designer of the second Fastnet Lighthouse and similarly applied his father's complex building method. Furthermore, despite the strong granite tower, the top of the lighthouse was built to sway slightly in response to the prevailing Atlantic winds.

Sadly, James was taken ill in June 1903, having put the 89th and last granite course of the tower in place. He was brought ashore to Crookhaven, where his condition worsened and he died. His body was brought to Wicklow Town on the 'Ierne' and his funeral was attended by over a 1,000 townspeople, a majority of the town's population.

On June 27, 1904, the new light was exhibited for the first time, marking, as Irish Lights put it, “a pinnacle of modern masonry engineering”.

Over the decades, prior to the development of commercial flight, Fastnet became known as the “Ireland’s teardrop” – as in the last view of the island for emigrants en route to North America.

The grandchildren of James gave his work tools to the Mizen Head Signal Station and Visitor Centre on permanent loan. One of his grandchildren, Billy, who today lives on the Dunbur Road of the town with his family, and who regularly walks his dog on the pier, was deeply appreciative of my mural of the Fastnet in memory of his grandfather. I completed this mural on my 68th birthday on the 30th August.

It is my ambition within the next year or two to visit the magnificent feat of ocean engineering that is the second Fastnet Lighthouse to see it for myself.

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