Blacksod Lighthouse

Blacksod is unusual among Irish lighthouses in being a two-storey granite building with the light on its roof rather than a tower - it was completed in 1866 from granite quarried nearby. Its place in history comes from the weather. On 3 June 1944, Maureen Flavin, then twenty-one and working at the station where her future husband Ted Sweeney was keeper, took a routine hourly reading showing a rapidly falling barometer and a coming Atlantic front. Because Ireland's western stations were the first to see weather approaching Europe, the reading was passed to the Met Office and reached Eisenhower's meteorologists; it was a factor in postponing the invasion from 5 June to 6 June, and the storm that arrived on the fifth would have been catastrophic for the landings. Maureen Sweeney received formal recognition from the United States in 2021 and died in 2023, aged one hundred.

History

A lighthouse at the southern end of the Mullet was first asked for in 1841 by a Lieutenant Nugent of the coastguard at Belmullet. The lighthouse at Blacksod Point was completed in 1866, funded by Bryan Carey, a leading Belmullet merchant, and built of granite from the nearby Beaufort quarries, and its light was first lit on 30 June 1866 (Wikipedia, Blacksod Lighthouse).

What to look for

• The granite building - two storeys with the light on the roof, first lit in 1866.
• The 1944 reading - the weather report that helped delay D-Day.
• The Mullet setting - the point at the southern tip of the peninsula.
• The working station - still an active navigation light.

When to go

April to October. It is fully exposed and unpleasant in wind. Interior tours are arranged locally rather than run to a fixed schedule - ask in Belmullet.

Good to know

The building is small and the interior is not routinely open - most visits are the exterior and the setting. It is a long drive to the end of the peninsula with few services. Nothing on site explains the D-Day story in detail.

Nearby

The Mullet peninsula runs north; Achill is visible across Blacksod Bay.

Key facts