Mizen Head Lighthouse, County Cork
Ireland’s most southerly point, Mizen Head on the Wild Atlantic Way is a place of extremes. Those extremes proved fatal when the SS Trada wrecked there in 1908. The resident lighthouse engineer and workmen saved 68 lives that day. Today, a high-sided bridge takes you to safely over thrashing seas to the signal station.
Also visit
Treat yourself to lunch in Durrus (33.5km from Mizen Lighthouse), a miniature village home to the renowned Durrus cheese
Blacksod Lighthouse, County Mayo
3 June, 1944. Inclement weather conditions are hampering Allied attempts to begin the D-Day landings. On 4 June, as Allied commanders absorb every available weather report, information arrives from a weather station on Ireland’s northwest coast. Conditions, it says, are improving. The decision is made. Two days later the landings begin, and Blacksod Lighthouse, along with its attendant Edward ‘Ted’ Sweeney, becomes a tiny but influential footnote in 20th century history.
Also visit
Metres from the Atlantic, the Céide Fields (61km from Blacksod) is – at 6,000-years-old – the oldest Stone Age ‘monument’ in the world. The thousands of acres of grassland include dwellings, tombs and field systems.
Fanad Head Lighthouse, County Donegal
Built as a result of HMS Saldanha’s tragic wreckage (according to reports, only the ship’s parrot survived) in 1811, Fanad Lighthouse has saved countless lives since. Higher than the Eiffel Tower (according to locals!), the lighthouse sits on the western shore of the Fanad Head peninsula.
Also visit
On the same peninsula, at Doaghbeg, the Great Arch is a stunning sea stack indented with a huge Atlantic-formed hole. Take a camera, take pictures.
Blackhead Lighthouse, County Antrim
Sitting at the north shore of Belfast Lough, Blackhead’s light would, in its time, have watched the likes of Titanic, Olympic and Britannic leave Belfast for open water. Today, thanks to the Irish Landmark Trust, the Lightkeeper’s House can be your accommodation on this north coast. If you do stay, keep your eyes peeled for the secret tunnel used by keepers as access between the light and the house during stormy weather.
Also visit
On the same peninsula, at Doaghbeg, the Great Arch is a stunning sea stack indented with a huge Atlantic-formed hole. Take a camera, take pictures.