LIGHTHOUSE keepers have been my friends for more than 40 years. As a technician working for the Commissioners of Irish Lights, which entailed travelling to the most remote parts of this island, their habitat would inevitably be my ultimate destination.
Lightkeepers were a rare breed and now, unfortunately, with the advance of ultra modern nautical technology, their presence, as guardians of those lonely outposts which have served the mariner faithfully for hundreds of years, is no longer required. Automation has taken over and, I might add, with almost indecent haste.
With the human element gone, is the mariner now going to feel more isolated out there on the briny, knowing that all the technological data in the world cannot possibly replace one keen eye on a telescope?
Lighthouse requiem
And with their passing, the coast will become that much the poorer. To us transient technicians en route to spend a few weeks in our own quarters, in places like the Old Head in Kinsale, Loop Head and Mizen Head, it was almost like home from home. A simple phone call from the nearest town meant the fire was on, the kettle boiling, light's warmth, humanity.
The feeling of belonging was almost palpable. The keepers were integrated into the local community. The lighthouse and its people were a vibrant part of the local scene, both socially and economically, and I can remember a time on Valentia Island where the shore dwelling for the Skelligs and Inistearght were located, when about 25 lightkeepers' children attended the local school. Now these stations are just other blots on the horizon, abandoned to the elements, their windows barred and their gates locked to the unwanted visitors.
Looking back now in retirement, after half a lifetime travelling the coast, and with the last lighthouse, the Baily, recently automated, I often wonder do ghosts of those old keepers still maintain a silent watch in their ivory towers.
Mundane existence
Before the advent of television, radio and telephone made life more tolerable, life in those places, especially rock Stations, must have been grim indeed. Some keepers did have hobbies, such as putting ships into bottles, making currachs and fashioning shillelaghs, but for the most part theirs was a mundane existence, with the weather and relief days their major priorities.
The advent of the helicopter was a major innovation in the service, and the bane of all lightkeepers' lives. Overdues became a thing of the past. Credit must be given here in thee superb pilots of those crafts who managed, often against appalling odds, to land their charges safely on dangerous projectories.
But what kept those keepers - so dedicated to their lonely vigils, sometimes in places where very few other mortals were destined to tread? Romanticism -certainly did play a part in some of their lives, but for most of them it was just another job, a lifestyle which the majority of them knew from childhood, and one to which they would inevitably gravitate.
Fathers' footsteps
Lightkeepers' sons almost invariably followed in their forbears' footsteps, and indeed it was almost expected of them. In my early days in the "Lights", a dozen or so surnames covered the entire range of the hundreds of keepers who then manned the coast. And what a tolerant bunch they were, sometimes spending months on places like the Fastnet, Tuskar and Eagle Island. (There were always three keepers on Rock Stations.)
Ashore, those three keepers - would probably have nothing in common, but out there, when keeping their lonely vigil, they were as one against the elements, a common bond being forged, in keeping their beacon flashing and the ancillary aids to navigation in operation.
Those rock lighthouses were a constant source of fascination for me, but that was possibly because my duration was always going to be a limited one. It is difficult to see how the keepers, the kindest spirits of a progeny initiated by the Egyptians, who built the first lighthouse at Pharos in 331 BC, are going to integrate into normal society.
A unique way of life has been lost forever, and now the rabbits on Inishtrahull, the puffins on Skelligs and the terns on Rockabill, have it all to themselves. Surely, won't even they sometimes wonder whatever happened to those strange creatures from another world, who inhabited their domain for so long. Creatures who suddenly packed their belongings, closed the lighthouse door and vanished without trace, forever.