HOLYHEAD LIGHTHOUSE.
Both the east and west coasts of our “sea-girt island” are well provided with warning lights, but a mere enumeration of them would scarcely be satisfactory to the reader, and a description would prove as wearisome as a twice-told tale, for the reason stated at the beginning of this chapter. If we traced the coast-line of Scotland, we should find it equally well defended; or if we crossed to the Isle of Man, we should still meet with the monuments of man’s warfare against the ocean. Then, again, if we cross from Holyhead to Dublin, our vessel is guided by the stately light which glows upon the Stack Rock, and by the Bailey Lighthouse at the extremity of the Howth peninsula. The Bailey on the south, and the Kish Lightship on the north, mark the extreme points of the beautiful Bay of Dublin. Keeping southward, along the eastern coast, we descry the lighthouses on the rugged cliffs of Wicklow Head, and in Tuskar Rock; and, on the south coast, at Hook Tower, marking the eastern side of the entrance to the port of Waterford; at Ballinacourty, as a guide to ships entering Dungarvan Harbour; at Mine Head, and Ballycottin Point, and Roche Point, the north-eastern boundary of Cork Harbour; and at the Old Head of Kinsale, whose light is visible for twenty-one nautical miles, and proves immeasurably welcome to the Briton home-bound from the New World, because it is the first he sees after his departure from American waters.
KINSALE LIGHTHOUSE.
A revolving light, which gradually increases and decreases every two minutes, is exhibited on the Fastnet Rock, a few miles off the southernmost point of Ireland.
Of iron lighthouses the British coast presents but few examples. The reader will, therefore, be not unwilling to gain some particulars of the tower on this well-known rock; a rock rising about 60 feet above high-water mark. Its iron structure consists, in the main, of the following parts:[49]—The shell, composed of cast-iron plates; the hollow cast-iron central column; five cast-iron floors, the uppermost of which is the platform at the top of the tower, supporting the lantern; a projecting cast-iron gallery, level with the platform, sustained by cast-iron brackets, and having a balustrade; an external iron stair, for access to the doors on the first floor; internal iron stairs to connect the several floors; a lining of masonry in the basement, and of brick in the upper stories; and a cut stone moulding round the base.
FASTNET ROCK LIGHTHOUSE.