Rock Lighthouses
Here we’re using the term “rock lighthouse” to mean a lighthouse standing alone off the coast, one which may be particularly hard to reach. Only two lighthouses in Ireland — Fastnet and Haulbowline — are true rock lighthouses.
Until the 1990s, when the last of the Irish lighthouses was automated, teams of lighthouse keepers would take turns ensuring the lighthouses on Irish coasts turned on their lights every night. These lights were used as navigational aids or warned vessels away from dangerous rocks or sand banks.
The teams of lighthouses keepers would have to survive for weeks, or even months at a time, in the small round rooms of the lighthouse.
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live on a lighthouse far out to sea?
Calf Rock, Co. Cork, Ireland (destroyed by a storm)
Eddystone Lighthouse, Cornwall, UK (stump on left is a former lighthouse destroyed in a storm)
Fastnet Lighthouse, Co. Cork, Ireland
Longships Lighthouse, Land's End, Cornwall, UK
New Brighton Lighthouse, Wallasey, UK
The Needles Lighthouse, Isle of Wight, UK
Beachy Head Lighthouse, East Sussex, UK