Islands of Ireland: Valour in the jaws of death

On the morning of November 28, 1881, the people of Dursey Island, Co Cork, looked out on the Calf Rock to an extraordinary sight. The tower of the lighthouse was gone, swept away in one of the most severe storms of the century. The lighthouse had been constructed in 1866 with its light 136ft high.

Disaster was fresh in the minds of the islanders as 12 years earlier six men drowned in another severe storm after they attempted to rescue the lighthouse keeper and workers from the Calf only to find the men didn’t require help after all. They were lost on the return journey.