In the second edition - ‘Danger at Sea – we explore just some of the instances when Lighthouse Keepers faced tumultuous seas and made life-saving dashes, and decisions.

Luke Clancy tells the story of the destruction of the Lighthouse at Calf Rock in 1881.

Former Lighthouse Keeper Gerald Butler and Ted Crosbie of the Irish Examiner remember the tragic Fastnet yacht race of 1979, which claimed the lives of 18 people. Gerald Butler was one of three keepers at the Fastnet on the night of August 13^th, when an unexpected storm battered the yachts at sea, with 3,000 people on the water that night. Ted was skipper of the yacht, ‘Mariquita’, which sailed to Fastnet with the photographer Michael Olney on board to capture images of the racing yachts for the Cork Examiner. With Chris Watson’s stunning sea recordings re-creating the scene, we hear the story from two perspectives – from sea level and from a lighthouse balcony.

Author and boatman, Des Lavelle remembers his father’s tenure as a Keeper on Skellig Micheal and how the paraffin oil used to power the light was used for another purpose entirely on the night of an emergency in 1933.