While my mother — Pauline Fitzgerald — was not the first female keeper, she was the only one of her day. This was unusual when you consider that women have been lighthouse keepers since the beginning of time. If you go back to the 1800s, wives often stepped in when the lightkeeper fell ill and had to be brought ashore. Women were the ones who strengthened the foundations of the Irish lights to an extent that may not have been possible without them.

My family’s connection to the lights dates way back to forgotten times. Our father was stationed at Roancarrigmore Lighthouse, near Castletownbere, when I was born. My entire life has revolved around the lights. After spending a week in Ballycotton with my father, I knew this was a career I wanted to pursue as well. At the age of 19, I became a supernumerary keeper. That was 1969 when I was stationed at the the Baily Lighthouse in Dublin.

It’s fair to say not everybody can live with themselves or enjoy their own company. This was one of the difficulties that the Irish Lights experienced. There were young lads coming into the lighthouse life only to discover it was not for them. That’s why they wanted the sons of lightkeepers to come into the service. Having come from that background, we had a good idea what was being asked of us.

In 1973, I was appointed assistant keeper to the Bull Rock. The noise there was deafening, but beautiful. Its bird life was colossal. Every springtime, the place exploded into life. It was bubbling with colour and birdsong until one day I woke to find that all the birds vanished. Every single one of them was gone. That, for me, was the first and only time I ever really experienced loneliness.

Retirement

In 1990, I was forced to retire as a full-time lighthouse keeper. At this stage, I was only 39, but the automation was already taking over, leaving me with no choice but to abandon the career that I loved. I had the option of waiting another 12 months, but the automation was going to catch up with me one way or another. People often asked me if it was the end of an era but I refused to accept this. I realise now that life never remains static. It is not on a plateau but rather changes all the time. Eras come and go and this one has passed. It is something I come across time and time again. As human beings, we reject change in our lives. For me, the comfort zone or salary part did not come into it. It was the fact that I absolutely loved the life I was living. However difficult, I had to find a way to stay connected with the sea so I took a leap of faith and bought a fishing trawler.

My favourite part of this job was probably the navigation. I loved reading the latlog and navigating to that area. However, I absolutely hated the sea at nighttime on account of a diving accident I had in 1973 at the age of 23. Back then, I enjoyed diving as a sport, but I used to be afraid of going down because, you couldn’t see where you were going. Once you went down and the bottom appeared to you, everything changed. You were a different person.

It’s difficult to sum up that feeling of staring into an abyss, in which you can’t see four or five inches below you. In 1973, at the age of 23, I had to be resuscitated after a dive which likely sparked this intense fear for me. Even when I was a lightkeeper, I never went too close to the water at night. Naturally, you don’t, because anything can happen.

A number of years after I changed career, the Government introduced a grant for fishermen to increase the size of their fishing boats. It meant the value of my tonnage increased, prompting me to hit the sell button right away. I had been fishing for 10 years at that point. My mother had been an attendant lightkeeper from 1979 until 1997 and I decided to apply for the same role.

I’m still the attendant lightkeeper at Galley Head Lighthouse, which is located on the coastline of West Cork. The duties have changed dramatically, because everything is monitored now and looked at through the lens of a computer screen. I might get a phone call from the UK telling me that the light at the Galley has failed, so I can fix any issue that has arisen.

A radio navigation will be broadcast on the marine frequency every half hour until that fault has been repaired. I would go as far as to say that I would pay to do this job because I love it so much. It is my permanent attachment to it and my ancestral connection to the lights that fuels this passion. I’m happy to say that to this day-and despite all the technological advancements, I’m still living my dream.