Light Hearted

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Ireland’s Hook Lighthouse is the oldest continuously operating lighthouse in the world. The tapering headland of Hook Head is in the southwestern part of County Wexford, on the southeast coast of Ireland below Dublin. In the fifth century, a monastery was established on the peninsula. According to tradition, the early monks from the monastery erected a beacon that burned fire to warn mariners away from the dangerous rocks on the Hook peninsula. A more substantial lighthouse tower was built around the year 1200. The tower was constructed of local limestone and it stands four stories high with walls up to 13 feet thick.

The light was automated in 1996 and the last light keepers were removed. The old keepers’ houses were turned into a visitor center and the light station was opened to the public in 2001. There’s also a café on the site.

Noel Lynch is a tour guide and entertainer at the Hook Lighthouse.

We’re posting both the usual audio version of this episode and also video of the interview.

The video version of the interview is below.

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Eighteen-acre Rose Island, about a mile offshore from Newport, Rhode Island, has a commanding position in Narragansett Bay’s East Passage. The waters around Newport were busy with passenger steamers, fishing boats, and freighters in the mid-nineteenth century. On July 20, 1868, Congress appropriated $7,500 for a lighthouse on the island, and the site chosen was a surviving bastion of eighteenth-century Fort Hamilton. The octagonal lighthouse tower rises from the west side of a mansard roof on top of the handsome one-and-one-half-story wooden keeper’s dwelling. The lighthouse went into service on January 20, 1870.

The light lost its importance as a navigational aid with the construction of the Newport Bridge in 1969. In the 1980s, a group of dedicated preservationists founded the Rose Island Lighthouse Foundation to protect the historic structure. In 1985, the Rose Island Lighthouse Foundation began the process of restoring the building inside and out. The lighthouse has been restored to the 1912-1915 period.

Below: Some of the rooms at Rose Island Light Station. Photos by Jeremy D’Entremont.

In 1992, the lighthouse was opened to the public, and on August 7, 1993, it was relighted as a private aid to navigation. You can now stay overnight at Rose Island for a taste of Lighthouse Service life. You can stay in the restored downstairs rooms or in the upstairs apartment. The Rose Island Lighthouse Foundation recently changed its name to the Rose Island Lighthouse and Fort Hamilton Trust, also known as the RIFH Trust. Brian Tefft is the executive director of the Trust. Brian is also a biologist with extensive experience with natural resource management, wetlands, environmental policy, and education.

Below: Video for the song “Flashing in the Dark” by Neptune’s Car, shot at Rose Island in 2012.

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Boon Island is located in southern Maine, about six miles from the nearest point of land. The popular writer Celia Thaxter once called the small rocky island “the forlornest place that can be imagined.” It was the scene of many shipwrecks over the years, including the wreck of the British Nottingham Galley in December 1710, an incident that was later the basis of a novel by Kenneth Roberts.

For the safety of local fishermen and coastal trading vessels, a lighthouse replaced an earlier day beacon in 1811. The original wooden tower was only 32 feet tall. The slender granite tower that stands today is 133 feet tall, making it the tallest lighthouse in the New England states. A second-order Fresnel lens in the tower was first lighted on January 1, 1855.

The photos below of Boon Island, circa 1978, are courtesy of Kirby Eldridge. The boathouse and peapod boat are on the left, and the keeper’s house is on the right.

The Coast Guard automated the station soon after the keepers’ house was badly damaged in the disastrous Blizzard of 1978. Kirby Eldridge and Leo Berry were the last keepers on the island. After his time in the Coast Guard, Kirby spent about 17 years in the Army, followed by 25 years working as a systems engineer until his recent retirement. He lives today in Georgia.

Co-hosting this episode is Bob Trapani, Jr., executive director of the American Lighthouse Foundation. Bob is also a lighthouse technician and he’s had some personal experience with Boon Island.

Below: Left, the demolition of the keeper’s house in 1982. Right: Boon Island Lighthouse in 2007 (photo by Jeremy D’Entremont).

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In the late 1860s, the hazard known as the Middle Ground Flats — opposite the City of Hudson, New York, in the Hudson River —made navigation in the busy shipping route treacherous. An appropriation of $35,000.00 was approved by Congress in 1872 to build the Hudson-Athens Lighthouse. The lighthouse went into service in late 1874. It was run by a resident keeper until it was automated in the 1950s. It still serves as an aid to navigation.

In 1982 a group of local citizens formed the Hudson-Athens Lighthouse Preservation Society. Since then, with the help of private donations, public grants, and legislative initiatives, the Preservation Society has undertaken the analysis and mitigation of structural, aesthetic, interpretive and public access issues that face the property. Recent efforts have mostly focused on shoring up the foundation of the structure.

A grant from the Preservation League of New York State earlier this year is supporting an engineering study of the lighthouse. Another issue the organization has faced in recent years is the failure of the power cable that provided electricity for the lighthouse. Van Calhoun is chair of the Hudson-Athens Lighthouse Preservation Society’s Foundation Renovation Committee. Bob Taylor is the historian for the Society, and Bill Palmer is a volunteer and boat captain.

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The Bonavista Peninsula is on the east coast of Newfoundland, Canada, separating Trinity Bay to the south from Bonavista Bay to the north. At the peninsula’s northeastern tip is the headland known as Cape Bonavista. It’s believed that the navigator Giovanne Caboto, better known as John Cabot, may have landed at the cape during his first expedition to North America in 1497. It’s said that when he caught site of the high bluffs at Cape Bonavista, he exclaimed, “O Buono Vista,” meaning “Oh Happy Sight,” which gave the cape its name.

The lighthouse at Cape Bonavista was established in 1843 to help mariners entering Trinity Bay and Bonavista Bay, and to aid navigation heading down the coast for Labrador. The original lamps and reflectors came from the famous Bell Rock Light in Scotland. That system was replaced in 1895 by a catoptric lighting system that had been designed by the renowned Scottish engineer Robert Stevenson. The apparatus was originally used at Isle of May Lighthouse in Scotland. It was installed at Harbour Grace Lighthouse in Newfoundland in 1847, and finally at Cape Bonavista in 1895.

In 1970 the station was declared a Provincial Historic Site, and the lighthouse was restored by the provincial government a few years later. The historic 1895 lighting apparatus was returned to the lantern room, and it’s on display there today. Marlene O’Connell Russell is the site supervisor for Cape Bonavista Lighthouse and also for Mockbeggar Plantation in Bonavista.

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Wave-swept Bell Rock Lighthouse, about five miles from Arbroath in southeastern Scotland, was designed by the engineer Robert Stevenson of the famous Stevenson family of engineers. The granite tower, first lighted in 1811, was built so well that none of it has needed to be repaired or replaced in more than 200 years. It’s the oldest wave-swept, or sea-washed, granite lighthouse in the world.

The keepers at Bell Rock lived inside the tower itself. The lighthouse operated in tandem with a shore station known as the Bell Rock Signal Tower, built in 1813 in Arbroath. The Signal Tower housed the families of the keepers, along with personnel who ran the lighthouse tender that supplied the light station.

The Signal Tower was converted into a museum in the 1970s. The museum has exhibits on Bell Rock Lighthouse and its keepers, as well as exhibits on the local manufacturing and fishing industries.

The Signal Tower is one of several museums operated by ANGUSalive. Caroline Taylor is the Heritage Learning and Engagement Lead at ANGUSalive.

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Litløy fyr, on a small island off the northwest coast of Norway, was first lit in October 1912. For a time, it was the second most powerful lighthouse in Norway. The lighthouse was electrified in 1959 and then automated in 1991. Staff remained at the light station to maintain the property and to run a weather station. Eventually the staff was removed in 2003. Then, a couple of years later, the Norwegian Coastal Administration sold 20 lighthouses to new stewards. Elena Hansteensen bought Litløy fyr with the intention of making it accessible to the public.

The property, known as Littleisland Lighthouse in English, has been renovated. Overnight accommodations are now available, as well as guided tours. Travel and Leisure named Littleisland Lighthouse one of the best small hotels in the world. B&B. Elena Hansteensen is the owner and managing director of Littleisland Lighthouse. She was honored with an award for women entrepreneurs in 2017.

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From the mid-eighteenth through the early twentieth centuries, the waterways of coastal Georgia, from the St. Marys River in the south to the Savannah River in the north, were a vital part of the state’s economy. Georgia’s barrier islands are home to five existing lighthouses, each with its own unique style and history.

Lighthouses of the Georgia Coast is the eleventh book by William Rawlings. He was born, raised, and lives in Sandersville, Georgia, home to his family for more than two centuries. His first five books were suspense novels set in rural Georgia. Turning to nonfiction, he wrote three subsequent works about Georgia and Southern history. He’s been the recipient of a number of writing awards.

Rawlings’s recent works include a suspense novel set in Savannah titled The Girl with Kaleidoscope Eyes, and a true-crime thriller, Six Inches Deeper. Lighthouses of the Georgia Coast, his fifth nonfiction book, was published by Mercer University Press earlier this year. The new book includes information about lighthouse design and construction, the role and legacy of the keepers, and the strategic importance of the structures during the Civil War. To learn more about William Rawlings and his books, see the author’s website at williamrawlings.com.

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On one side of North Carolina’s Bald Head Island, the Cape Fear River empties into the Atlantic Ocean. On the other, treacherous sand bars known as the Frying Pan Shoals stretch to the south for about 30 miles into the ocean. The island’s first lighthouse was established in 1794. The original lighthouse was soon threatened by erosion, and it was discontinued in 1813. A new 110-foot-tall lighthouse was completed in 1817, but it was soon realized that it wasn’t bright or tall enough to guide vessels past the dangerous shoals. A new lighthouse, known as the Cape Fear Light, was built on the island in 1903 to help mariners negotiate the Frying Pan Shoals. Cape Fear Lighthouse has since been demolished but Old Baldy remains standing as the oldest lighthouse in North Carolina.

The Old Baldy Foundation is a nonprofit organization established for the preservation of Bald Head Lighthouse, best known as Old Baldy. Abby Overton has been the development and communications coordinator for the Old Baldy Foundation since 2017. She has led fundraising efforts and planned many special events, developed a membership program, created and edited a monthly newsletter, designed the organization’s promotional materials, among many other accomplishments.

Old Baldy Foundation educator and historian Hunter Ingram came to the Cape Fear region to write about local history and the North Carolina film industry for the Wilmington StarNews. Hunter is a devoted storyteller and lifelong lover of history who is excited about sharing the centuries of stories that define Old Baldy and Bald Head Island.

Located at the eastern tip of Long Island, Montauk Point Light is the oldest lighthouse in New York and the fourth oldest active lighthouse in the country. Construction began in 1796 and was completed in the following year. When the light station was automated and de-staffed in 1987, a museum opened in the keeper’s house, operated by the Montauk Historical Society. Then, in 1996, ownership of the light station buildings was transferred to the historical society.

For many years the light station has been threatened by the erosion of the bluff on which it stands; it was 297 feet from the edge when it was first built, and only about 90 feet today. A series of erosion control measures have been carried out, including a current revetment project costing more than $30 million and being implemented by the Army Corps of Engineers.

Mia Certic became the executive director of the Montauk Historical Society in April 2020. She is a writer and screenwriter who’s lived in California for many years, but she’s spent every summer in her life at Montauk.

Henry Osmers is the official historian for the lighthouse, and he’s written four books about Montauk history. One of them, On Eagle’s Beak, published in 2008, was the first major history of the lighthouse.