Lighthouse, fog signal buildings and structures, East Light, Ballycarry Td, Rathlin Island, Co. Antrim

East Light, Rathlin Island

This is a mid-19th century lighthouse complex on Rathlin Island, County Antrim, designed by George Halpin Senior, Inspector of Works and Lighthouses from 1810 until his death in 1854. Work began in May 1849 and the lights were first exhibited on 1 November 1856. The complex comprises a six-storey lighthouse tower with an upper lantern, a separate base lantern at ground level, boundary walls and entrance gateway, an early 20th century explosives store, a rocket house, and a gun platform. The premises occupy an exposed rocky headland just east of Altacorry at the north-eastern corner of the island, commanding wide views across the North Channel to Islay and the Mull of Kintyre. Access from the public road is along a 660-metre unsurfaced track.

The Lighthouse Tower

The tower is a freestanding, slightly tapered structure of uncoursed, randomly-sized dressed stone blocks, each faced to the curvature of the tower, resting on a slightly advanced base course. The stone floors and staircases are keyed into the inside faces of the walls — a construction method characteristic of lighthouse towers. The tower is painted white from its base up to the sill of the third floor and black above. There is a recessed painted timber entrance door on the south elevation, with a metal security grille in front. The ground floor has no other external openings apart from this door and an internal door leading into the adjoining base lantern.

All windows are two-over-two-paned timber with ventilation slots across their tops; the sills are painted, probably in granite. Each floor above ground level has two windows on opposite sides of the tower, with each pair rotated 90 degrees relative to the pair immediately above and below — a deliberate arrangement to minimise the risk of vertical cracks developing in the walls. Around the top of the tower is a projecting dressed stone gallery supported on dressed granite brackets. This gallery encloses a 16-sided iron-framed lantern with a hemispherical metal roof, three rows of external handrails, a bulbous ventilator, a finial lightning conductor, and a narrow metal gutter. Four diagonal metal struts anchor the lantern to the gallery. There are three rows of windows around the lantern; two cants on the west side have been blanked off with over-painting. The canted cast-iron construction and continuous fenestration of the lantern are typical of lighthouse design. Roofing and rainwater goods are metal.

The tower is recorded as 60 feet high in the 1859 Valuation and 65 feet in the circa 1935 Valuation; Irish Lights records it as 88 feet to the top of the lantern. The light stands 243 feet above mean spring water level. The tower's original flashing character was 50 seconds bright and 10 seconds dark, and it also displayed a red sector over Carrick-a-vaan Rock off Kenbane Head on the mainland. The paintwork has changed over time: originally red-over-unpainted stone, then red-over-white, and from 1933 or 1934, black-over-white, which survives today.

The present 920mm catadioptric annular lens in the top lantern was installed in 1912, along with a vaporised paraffin burner. It was probably at this point that the signature was changed to its current flashing character — dark for a longer period than shining — recorded on the 1922 Ordnance Survey map as a "white group flashing light." The red sector towards Kinbane was discontinued in 1938. The illuminant was changed from vaporised paraffin to an electric bulb on 1 October 1981. The lighthouse was automated on 28 March 1995 and has since November of that year flashed day and night — four white bursts every 20 seconds — with a range of 26 nautical miles. A radar beacon (racon), which is triggered by a ship's radar and returns a signal allowing precise position-fixing regardless of visibility, came into operation on 1 March 1995. All electronic equipment is now monitored from Irish Lights' Dun Laoghaire headquarters. Since being demanned in 1995, the East Light has been looked after by a part-time attendant on behalf of Irish Lights.

The Base Lantern

At the base of the east side of the tower, atop a circular granite platform enclosed by a painted cast-iron balustrade, sits a second lantern. Except for the over-painting of its windows, it is identical in form to the upper lantern on the tower. The top two of its three rows of windows are over-painted white, as are four windows on the bottom row nearest the tower. The makers' name "I & R Mallet Dublin" is embossed on three of the cants below the windows — the "I" is almost certainly a rusted and over-painted "J", referring to John and Robert Mallet of Dublin, who manufactured both lanterns. A short corridor with a flat roof (with two small skylights) and painted and rendered walls connects this lantern with the ground floor of the tower.

This lower lantern was an uncommon feature and was introduced to distinguish the station from other lighthouses around the North Channel in conditions of poor visibility. It stood 182 feet above sea level and originally displayed a fixed light. The tower's 1856 Ordnance Survey depiction does not show the base lantern, suggesting it was not yet in place at the time of survey; it appears on the 1904 map. The lower light was discontinued on 1 July 1894, at which point the upper light was intensified. In the 1980s, the west bay of the rocket house was used to house a fuel tank supplying a standby electricity generator located in the base lantern.

The lighthouse is unique among the eight lighthouse towers still in use around the coast of Northern Ireland in having originally had two lanterns. It is the earliest of the three lighthouses on Rathlin Island by over 60 years. The tower's fabric is entirely authentic and the two lanterns are likewise authentic. George Halpin Senior also designed the lighthouses at Haulbowline and St John's Point, County Down.

Boundary Walls and Entrance Gateway

The lighthouse premises are bounded by a roughly 1.5 to 2 metre high random rubble wall. At the south-west corner is the entrance, comprising a pair of square dressed stone piers hung with replacement galvanised steel gates bearing "CIL" along their tops. From the gates, an unsurfaced track leads up to the entrance of the single-storey keeper's house compound. An original rubble masonry wall partially survives along the west side of the track. On the inside face of the boundary wall south-west of the two-storey houses are vestiges of a long-demolished lean-to.

At the start of the access laneway from the public road is a further entrance gate comprising two circular random rubble gate piers with conical tops and a galvanised steel gate between them. This entrance was rebuilt in the 1970s.

The Explosives Store

An early 20th century single-storey, two-bay disused explosives store is aligned east-west at the northern end of the lighthouse premises. It has a vaulted brick roof covered with white-painted tarred felt and no rainwater goods. The walls are white-painted brick with an advanced tarred and rendered base course. The north, east, and south elevations have no openings except for dogleg ventilation holes around the base. The west end is abutted by a slightly narrower entrance porch. The porch has a flagged stone roof edged with an advanced course of brick and a small brick pediment. Its walls are of tarred brick. The south elevation of the porch has a doorway with the door missing; the west elevation has an over-painted two-over-three fixed timber window with a protective wooden grille and concrete sill; the north elevation is blank.

Tonite (a nitro-based high explosive) was stored in this magazine; detonators were kept in the south annex of the single-storey keeper's house. The circa 1935 Valuation describes it as a small brick magazine. From 1972, when the use of explosives as a fog signal was superseded by a radio signal for security reasons, the store was used for more mundane purposes such as storing gas cylinders.

The Rocket House

Approximately 10 metres north of the explosives store is a disused single-storey, three-bay former rocket house, also aligned east-west. The two end bays are narrower than the central bay. The roof is flat, oversailing, and of concrete, with low square upstands at the north-east and north-west corners which formerly supported the ends of two metal jibs from which rockets — or rather explosive charges — were launched; one jib was a standby. Both jibs have long been removed. The walls are painted and rendered, though the underlying fabric is uncertain (whether stone or concrete requires further investigation). All windows have been replaced with uPVC top-opening casements.

The south elevation has painted double-leaf wooden shutters at the left (bay one) with a steel security grille to the front and a shallow concrete sill, and a window to the right (bay two). The west end is blank. The north elevation is built tight against the perimeter wall. It has a tongue-and-groove door at centre (bay two) and two small casements to the left (bay three), both with shallow concrete sills. There are no rainwater goods.

The circa 1935 Valuation describes the rocket house as a small rubble masonry firing shelter. The fog signal system worked as follows: a charge and detonator were placed on the end of the jib, winched up, and the detonator set off electrically. It is likely that the present reinforced-concrete roof was constructed when this system was introduced or modified.

In the 1980s the west bay was used to house a fuel tank for the standby generator in the base lantern. In the 1990s the rest of the building was internally refurbished as a mess room and toilet for maintenance crews. When the single-storey keeper's house was refurbished in the mid-2000s to accommodate such crews, the rocket house was abandoned.

The Gun Platform

Approximately 10 metres east of the explosives store is the substantial concrete base of a former gun emplacement, measuring approximately 7 metres north-south by 4.5 metres east-west. Set into its floor are three wooden platforms which presumably mark the positions of three guns. The structure probably originally had a timber or corrugated roof and walls, open to the seaward east side, but no traces of these survive.

History of the Fog Signalling

No buildings or structures are shown in the area of the rocket house and store on the 1856 Ordnance Survey map, apart from a sundial. In January 1866, a fog signal comprising an 18-pound cannon was established at the lighthouse, originally fired every 20 minutes, then at 15-minute and subsequently 8-minute intervals. Two uncaptioned buildings and the gun platform appear on the 1904 and 1922 Ordnance Survey maps. In 1918, the cannon was replaced by a more powerful audible signal comprising two tonite explosions every five minutes. From September 1965, the audible fog signal was accompanied by a brilliant flash of light. In 1972, the use of explosives was superseded by a radio signal.

The Marconi Wireless Demonstration and Lloyd's Signal Station

On 6 July 1898, George Kemp and Edward Glanville, assistants to Guglielmo Marconi, demonstrated wireless telegraphy to officials from Lloyd's of London, the shipping insurers. A Morse signal was successfully transmitted wirelessly from an aerial strung from the lighthouse tower and received by a mast in Ballycastle. Lloyd's subsequently built a signal station — a watch house and mast — on a plot beside the lighthouse, from which transatlantic shipping was observed and intelligence communicated wirelessly to Lloyd's London headquarters. The 1904 Ordnance Survey map explicitly captioned this adjoining Lloyd's Signal Station.

Just outside the lighthouse grounds, in the plot immediately south of the two-storey houses, are three concrete blocks set into the ground which appear to have been anchor stays for the Lloyd's mast. Block one is 13 metres south of the gated entrance to the lighthouse grounds, block two is a further 24 metres beyond that, and block three a further 35 metres on. All are approximately 60 centimetres by 60 centimetres in plan and originally had "LLOYDS" cast into their tops. All are now weathered to the extent that only "LOY" is readable on block one, "LLOYD" on block two, and block three is indecipherable.

Setting and Group Value

The lighthouse, base lantern, and associated structures form part of a more extensive complex that also includes a single-storey keeper's house to the south-west, a pair of later semi-detached keepers' houses to the south, and fog signal buildings to the south-east. A concrete footpath connects the lighthouse with these other buildings. The original perimeter wall and entrance piers survive. The East Light also has group value with the single-storey keeper's house, the semi-detached keepers' houses, and the nearby remaining signalling blocks, as well as a broader associative group value with Rathlin's later West Light and South Light. The lighthouse is of architectural and historical significance in the context of Northern Ireland, and remains of economic importance in terms of maritime travel and trade.