Lights go dark at landmark lighthouse built during Famine

A landmark lighthouse which has helped guide boats, ships and tankers into one of Ireland’s busiest bays since Famine times has been decommissioned.

The light at Roancarrig lighthouse, at the mouth of Bantry Bay in Co Cork, was switched off this week for the first time since 1847.

It has been replaced with a smaller, solar-powered light installed atop a stainless steel tower erected within the former lighthouse complex, which is on a rocky outcrop three miles from the point of Bere Island and eight miles from Castletownbere.