Last one out, turn off the light…

HAVING steadfastly twinkled across the Shannon Estuary for 187 years, Kilcredaun Lighthouse in Carrigaholt will blink farewell on Friday morning. Located about two miles south of Carrigaholt village, the 13m lighthouse, whose lens has a range of 15 nautical miles, first lent light to the estuary on September 1, 1824.

Managed by The Commissioners of Irish Lights, full time lighthouse keepers were employed in Kilcredaun until 1929 when it became unwatched, which is the equivalent of unmanned.  
Stephen Rowan has been employed as a part time attendant since 1988. Prior to that his father Jimmy filled the same role for 45 years. Having been raised with the lighthouse and still living right next to it, Stephen will definitely miss its familiar flicker.
“We’ve had a long association with it,” he told The Clare Champion last Sunday evening.
“The Rowans and Kilcredaun lighthouse go back a long way. There was an old man here, Michael Haugh; they used call him ‘Hockey’. He used always say ‘ah sure, there’s only a while in everything.’ T’was true for him,” Stephen reflected as dusk crept up on the early spring evening.
“It’s a pity to see it going but what can you do. It’ll be strange to see it dark. The only time it was dark was during the Second World War. The light keepers didn’t want to go either but technology moves on. You can’t stop the march of time,” he added.
The lighthouse terrace can be accessed by crawling through a miniature wooden door. The view is well worth the crawl though for those who can squeeze in. Ballybunion is located about seven miles across the estuary, while Beale Strand, the Cliffs of Dooneen and Carrigaholt Castle are all visible on a clear day.
Fintan Ryan, a local man, tells an intriguing story about an unnamed Ballybunion oarsman who was often seen in Carrigaholt.
“A big tall man from Ballybunion, with a curly head of hair and a big woolly hat on him,” is how Fintan remembers the man who hasn’t been seen in Carrigaholt for about five years.
“He’d row a two man currach into Carrigaholt. I think he was barred out of a few pubs in Ballybunion. He’d come with the tide, have his clatter of pints and row away back again,” he marvelled.
“You’d want to be fairly sober to go rowing back. There’s a fair current out there,” Stephen Rowan suggested.
Kilstiffin Bank is also visible from Kilcredaun Lighthouse and indeed as we spoke to Stephen and Fintan, a beacon flashed through the dulling evening. However, visitors might be better off not peering too closely at the rock, which dates from the ice age.
“The old piseog story was that it was a village originally,” Stephen confided. “Generations ago. They said it was a village that was swallowed up by the tide and that it rises up once every generation. And that if you saw that, you’d only live so many years afterwards,” he noted darkly.
A World War II watch tower, a Napoleonic Battery and Kilcredaun graveyard, which dates back to Cromwell, are located within walking distance of the lighthouse.  
Local men from Kilkee back were employed in the watch tower during The Emergency.
“The local defence forces and coast watchers were there. They did a watch for five or six hours. They went home and then someone else came on duty. There was always two there. They said it was the warmest place to be. They had plenty of oil for the stove and loads of fags. They used to enjoy going up for their five or six hours,” Stephen said, mentioning Johnny Lynch and Martin Foran, as men who had worked there.
The Napoleonic Battery was built to stave off a possible visit from Napoleon. Ironically the Battery wasn’t completed until after Napoleon’s death in 1821 and long after his military defeat in 1815 at Waterloo.
“It was built at the time of Napoleon but by the time it was finished he was defeated. So it was really obsolete. They had both sides of the river covered with big massive cannons. They were afraid that Napoleon was going to invade up along here,” Stephen disclosed, referring to similar defensive structures in Ballylongford, Doonaha and Labasheeda. 
Before the lighthouse was electrified in 1979, the lens was gas operated. The gas was manufactured on site in a small red building next to the lighthouse.
“We used to make our own gas with carbide and water,” Stephen confirmed. A bonus of having gas made in Kilcredaun was that the waste from it was used to paint most local houses.
“All the walls on the houses around here were done (white washed) with the sludge which was a waste product. It was like lime only that it was a thick and gooey. You thinned it out with water and put it up on the wall,” Stephen explained.
After 1979 the lighthouse became a monitoring station operated from Dún Laoighre with the attendants workload significantly lightened.
“It virtually runs itself. It comes on in the evening and goes off in the morning. The work changed completely when they moved to electricity. The hard, laborious work was gone at that stage but my father had to work fairly hard on it. Every lighthouse is monitored from Dún Laoighre. They’ll know there’s a fault here before I’d know,” Stephen said.
Although a lighthouse has been located at Loop Head since the 1700s, Kilcredaun Lighthouse as it stands is older than the current Loop Head lighthouse, as the original was demolished in the 1800s.
“Loop Head is the most famous lighthouse but I always joke that we’ve got the best views. In the Loop you’re looking out onto the wild Atlantic but here you’re looking at the estuary. Kilcredaun is an older tower than the one back at the Loop. The original lighthouse at the Loop is older, obviously, but they decided that the original tower there wasn’t good enough so they rebuilt it,” Stephen stated.
Going back to Stephen’s father’s time, the Rowans have always welcomed visitors be they locals or tourists. A visitors’ book still lies in what is called the battery room of the lighthouse and has been recording names since 1965. The original book, with names of visitors since 1824, is in the Bailey Lighthouse museum in Dún Laoighre.
Having grown up with and worked in the lighthouse, Stephen Rowan, who also farms in Kilcredaun, naturally has an emotional attachment with the historic building. Therefore he is hoping that The Commissioners of Irish Lights don’t progress with their plans to sell the lighthouse and the house in which he lives.
“They’ll give me around a year to get myself organised,” he said with reference to the likelihood that he will have to buy or build a new house.
Before that though, Stephen will have to become accustomed to life without the shimmering glint from Kilcredaun Lighthouse, dark 187 years after it first shone a guiding light onto the Shannon Estuary.