Friday 21 July 2017

Oyster Island Lighthouse, Rosses Point, county Sligo


Two lights were established on Oyster island in 1837 but the one you see now dates from 1893. It became a rear leading light with the metal man in 1932 and was eventually converted from acetylene to propane in 1979 and then to solar in 2003. 
In 2007 at the height of the boom, the island (in part) came up for sale at a whopping 750k. The Island was famous for its oyster fishery, with beds covering an area of seventy acres. The Island was at the centre of a major story in 1864 when the beds were raided by eight boatloads of men and twenty-five thousand oysters were taken.
In 1841, the population of Oyster Island was 28, mostly lighthouse employees and their families, but this figure had dropped to 19 in 1861. The population gradually decreased and on Census Day, 1986, the Island had one solitary inhabitant.

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