Survey Data
Reg No
31301012
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Historical, Social, Technical
Previous Name
Ballyglass Lighthouse
Original Use
Lighthouse
In Use As
Lighthouse
Date
1845 - 1860
Coordinates
76997, 337072
Date Recorded
14/01/2011
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Freestanding single-bay three-stage lighthouse, built 1846-8, on a circular plan. Completed, 1853-5. Commissioned, 1855. "Improved", 1930. Electrified, 1977. Repaired. Replacement rendered battered walls on rendered chamfered plinth with cantilevered walkway on cut-granite thumbnail beaded corbels supporting cast-iron "Serpentine" railings centred on lantern on granite ashlar base. Square-headed door opening with concealed dressings framing timber boarded or tongue-and-groove timber panelled door. Square-headed window openings with cut-granite sills, and concealed dressings framing eight-over-eight timber sash windows. Set in own grounds on headland with limewashed piers to perimeter having lichen-covered stepped capping supporting wrought iron double gates.
Appraisal
A lighthouse erected in two stages to a design signed by George Halpin Senior (1776-1854), Inspector of Works and Lighthouses for the Ballast Board (appointed 1810; CIL), representing an important component of the mid nineteenth-century maritime built heritage of Contae Mhaigh Eo [north County Mayo] with the architectural value of the composition, one recalling the Halpin-designed Rathlin O'Birne Lighthouse (1847-56), County Donegal, confirmed by such attributes as the gently tapering silhouette; and the curvilinear iron work encircling the lantern.