For eight centuries someone had to climb the stairs and tend the light. This is their history as the sources tell it, from the monks of Hook to the last keepers who left the Baily on 24 March 1997, with the D-Day weather report from Blacksod on the way.
The last keepers left the Baily Lighthouse on Howth Head on 24 March 1997, making it the last Irish lighthouse to go automatic. An attendant still lives in the Principal Keeper’s house.
On 3 June 1944 Maureen Flavin, at the weather station on Blacksod Lighthouse, recorded a fall in pressure that Ted Sweeney confirmed. The reports went to Britain, and Eisenhower put the invasion back 24 hours, from 5 to 6 June.
By the Dublin Port Act 1867. Their predecessor, the Corporation for Preserving and Improving the Port of Dublin (the Ballast Board), was set up in 1786 and given all Ireland’s lighthouses in 1810.
English Wikipedia articles fetched in October 2026, and the Commissioners of Irish Lights’ Our history ↗ page. Each line above links the pages it rests on; where they differ, both are given. The lights named here (9 of them) are in our full list of Irish lighthouses.
Every Irish lighthouse, oldest first → · Shipwrecks → · Harbours and boats → · Monuments →