Separated from the coast of Co. Down by the mile wide Donaghadee Sound lie the Great Copeland Island and its two small neighbours. These three islands have been responsible for as many wrecks as anywhere on the Ulster coast. Situated at the southern entrance to Belfast Lough, where the strong tides of the North Channel come into conflict with those swirling around the Lough, the resultant Ramharry Race runs, as its Scandinavian meaning indicates, rough and strong.

The Norsemen used these islands as a base and named them Kaupmennayer - anglicised and shortened to Copman which meant Merchant Isles. St Ninian and St Launas of Bangor Abbey were associated with the islands. St Ninian gave his name to the Ninion Bushes, a shoal reef to seaward of the islands with its warning buoy. The Copeland family, originally Norman, had connections with the area since 1183.

The population of the Great Copeland Island in the early nineteenth century was almost one hundred, with a school of twenty eight pupils. This declined until 1946 when the last two families finally and regretfully moved ashore. Its neat farmhouses are now holiday and weekend homes.

The larger and higher of the two outlying islands, variously called Laune (most likely named after St. Launas), Cross, St John’s or Old Lighthouse Island had early monastic dwellers. A cross, it is said, stood at one time on the island reflecting its religious connections.

The smallest is Mew Island, named because of the common gull or sea mew, larus canus, which nested there in great abundance in bygone years. This island of just over 31 acres is of extremely low profile, 32 feet at the highest point, making it difficult to see at night. In poor visibility sailing vessels tacking their way against contrary winds or running before a howling gale were set off course by the strong and often turbulent Ramharry tidal race.

Pressure was exerted on the authorities to provide a lighthouse at this busy and dangerous place. There had been a cottage type coal fire light at Islandmagee for a brief period in the 1660s. It was decided to build a new lighthouse, not on Mew Island, but on its near neighbour. As lighthouse engineers saw it in those days, this was the more suitable because of its greater height.

Copeland Light

The lighthouse and dwelling were built from stones quarried on the island by convicts. When the tower was built, an iron chauffer was erected on top of the three storied building and the beacon fire came into operation around 1711. Though the blazing fire illuminated the night sky the frequency of shipwrecks showed little decrease.

Towards the end of the 18th century, the archaic, inefficient and uneconomical coal beacon was replaced. A six foot diameter glass paned lantern was fitted at the top of the tower with six Argand (circular wick) lamps burning sperm oil. Each of the six lamps was magnified by a parabolic reflector. The lighthouse was now forty four feet high standing on an elevation of almost seventy feet. Its new light came into operation in 1796.

The new lamps did not save the sailing vessel Enterprise. During an easterly gale on 25th March 1803 she came to grief on the jagged rocks of Mew Island close to the notorious Ramharry Rock. A slaver, she was returning from her voyage of ill gotten gain by way of West Africa, the Caribbean and New England with a rich cargo and silver dollars worth over £40,000.

In 1810 control of the lighthouses of Ireland passed from the Revenue Board to the Corporation for Improving the Port of Dublin, the Ballast Office. One of its first decisions was to build a new fifty two foot high lighthouse close to the original. The work was commenced in 1813 and the new light, equipped with twenty-seven oil burning lamps set in silvered reflectors, 131 feet above high water and visible for sixteen miles, was first exhibited on 24th January 1815.

The station had two Keepers, their wives and families in residence. New houses were built to accommodate them. For island lighthouses of the time, life on the Copeland Island was most tolerable. The island was large enough to support goats, sheep and pigs as well as the donkey. The two families were virtually self sufficient in milk, mutton, pork and bacon with the occasional beast to sell as well. Their walled garden provided ample vegetables and their poultry gave them chicken for Sunday lunch and eggs to complement their bacon for breakfast. A weekly boat from Donaghadee brought provisions and mail.

The lighthouse, though its power output was somewhat increased, still had two great shortcomings, both of which were to result in future shipwreck - its lack of distinctive character and the presence of the menacing, low lying Mew Island to seaward.

The light was the subject of many complaints and vessels continued to be disadvantaged by the lack of light or fog signal on Mew Island. In July 1847 the Belfast to Liverpool passenger paddle steamer Sea King in thick fog ran aground on Mew Island close to where the Enterprise had been wrecked forty four years before. That same day Athlone ran aground close by. She was soon refloated but the Sea King, only two years in service, became a total loss.

Four years later, in thick October fog, the Cunard paddle steamer Africa ran aground near the wreck of the Sea King. She was refloated on the next tide but many other less famous ships were not so lucky.

The limitations of the outdated fixed light were demonstrated when the Yorkshireman, new from the builder’s yard, mistook the Donaghadee Lighthouse for Copeland in early January 1854. The master swung his ship prematurely into what he thought was Belfast Lough and was wrecked on the Foreland Rock in Donaghadee Sound.

After sustained pressure from shipping interests, and much procrastination, the Commissioners of Irish Lights eventually agreed to move the Copeland Light to Mew Island.

Mew Island Lighthouse

Work on the new station began in September 1882. A tall tower was necessary to give the maximum range and so that it could be seen over the two neighbouring islands. All the buildings were constructed of stone, quarried on the island, stuccoed in Portland cement. The tower from base to balcony level is 98 feet. The diameter at the base is 22 feet and the walls at this point are over five feet thick. When the decorative cast iron murette, the lantern and the copper dome were added the total height to the top of the cowl was 129 feet.

The optic consisted of three tiers of six panels, each with central ‘bulls eye’ lens and eleven concentric rings of polished glass prism. A lead weight of almost a half ton, wound up every half hour by the Keeper-on-watch, powered a rotation machine. The character was a group of four flashes repeated every minute. The light was provided by three multi-jet gas burners, one in each tier. In clear weather, only 32 jets of the lower tier were used amounting to 13,645 candle power. This was increased in hazy weather to all 108 jets of this tier, while in fog the full brilliance of 189,446 candle power from all 324 jets shone out.

Air pressure for the siren fog signal was provided by two compressors, each driven by an eight horse power Crossley gas engine.

Coal-gas for the light and fog signal was made in a gas works at the station, and stored in two gasometers. A third gasometer was added in 1899 when the two original gas fog signal engines were replaced by three more powerful sets.

The Mew Island shore dwellings, five splendid houses in Donaghadee, were built at the same time as the lighthouse. Included were a boathouse with a large store, winch and slipway as well as a boat landing.

It was necessary to accustom the Keepers who were to man the new lighthouse to what, for some of them, was completely new technology. The two Keepers on the neighbouring island were, in turn, taken over and thoroughly trained in the fixing of furnaces and retorts, the filtering and metering of the gas, and the operation of the triform gas burners with their complex flashing system. The running of the fog signal, its temperamental gas engines, and the largely untried twin toned siren required some getting used to. Two additional Keepers were appointed and, when the new dwellings were ready for occupation, their families, and the two families of the Copeland, moved in.

At sunrise on the morning of 1st November 1884 the ancient wick lamps of the fixed light of Copeland Lighthouse were extinguished for the last time and the same evening Mew Island light and fog signal were brought into operation.

The staff of the lighthouse included a gas maker. His job was to keep the furnaces stoked, maintain the gas holders at full capacity and perform many other duties in connection with the gas works.

In 1928 the gas plant was discontinued. The light was changed to vaporised paraffin, the lantern was rebuilt, and a rebuilt two-tier optic, rotating in a mercury trough, was installed. The paraffin vapour burner gave a powerful white light of 1,210,000 candlepower with great penetration capability in poor visibility.

The following year the siren fog signal was replaced by twin diaphones; new engines, compressors and air receivers were installed. The thundering tenor G note of the Mew fog signal, with its characteristic terminating grunt, was a tremendous improvement on the old siren, though the new engines were rather troublesome.

In 1948 three Ruston & Hornsby 5YHR horizontal single cylinder diesel engines, directly coupled to twin cylinder vertical Reavell air compressors were installed. In contrast to those which they replaced, these engines were a delight. They are now nearing fifty years since installation and without doubt could run many more. They require, and have always received, constant care while running, and regular maintenance when not. Because of their lubrication and cooling systems they do not lend themselves to unattended use and it was, therefore, necessary to double up watches in foggy weather when the engines were in use during the hours of darkness. These excellent engines could have continued to power the diaphone for many years to come. However, the fog signal which, for a century, warned mariners away from danger, was discontinued in March 1991.

A radiobeacon was installed in 1949, powered by two diesel generator sets.

In 1969 the paraffin vapour burners were replaced by 3.5 kW electric lamps. The optic, originally manufactured in 1887, was retained but the rotation was now by electric motor. Electricity for the new light was provided by three diesel alternator sets installed in the old gas plant in 1964.

A radar transponder beacon (Racon) was installed in 1993. The racon, when triggered by a ship’s radar, paints a response on the vessel’s radar screen in the form of the Morse letter ‘O’ (- - -). This provides a precise reference point in this hazardous area and will remain in operation on the automation of the station.

The finest testimony to the building of this lighthouse is the fact that Mew Island - heretofore the graveyard of numerous fine ships and finer lives - has not been responsible for the loss of one single life through shipwreck on it or either of its two neighbouring islands through inadequacy of the aids to navigation.

The Lightkeepers

The first Principal Keeper of Mew Island, and the last of Copeland Island, was my maternal great grandfather, John O’Donnell. As a young man he had joined the Lighthouse Service just as the Dublin Ballast Office was transferring responsibility to the Commissioners of Irish Lights. In due course he was appointed to the South Rock Lighthouse and, during his liberty periods ashore at the dwellings near Portaferry, he was attracted to a comely young lady, a farmer’s daughter from Ballyquinton Point. The girl, Jane Monan, and he were wed in 1870 and settled into the lighthouse dwellings where, in the fullness of time, the patter of tiny feet was heard.

It was he who had the honour of exhibiting the light on Mew Island, shining out its message of safety, for the very first time.

John O’Donnell’s children included four sons who would, in due course, become Lighthouse Keepers. Two of them had sons who would, in turn, follow in their footsteps and so would four of the next generation, and one of the next. My father served at Mew Island and while stationed there he met and fell in love with my mother.

Making coal-gas was a skilled and laborious procedure. During long periods of fog, gas consumption escalated through the light being increased to full power as well as the demands of the fog signal engines. I have been told by my father that when the fog signal was started at night it took hours of strenuous work to halt the fall of the fast emptying gas holder. Only when daylight came did the volume begin to rise. The toiling gas-maker must have greeted with relief the clearing of fog and the break of a new day.

In foggy weather and while awaiting suitable weather or tidal conditions boatmen engaged in fishing or pilotage often sheltered in the Mew Island gas house and, while yarning with the gas maker, fried fish or escallops with, in the nesting season, tern’s or gull’s eggs. For a frying pan the gas maker’s shovel was used, polished mirror bright by constant shovelling of coal and coke and sterilized by the heat of the furnace.

The last gas-maker was Tom Hammond, whose father, Henry, was a Principal Keeper. Tom served at Mew Island from 1905 until his retirement twenty years later. A bachelor, he lived in a two roomed cottage at the station and rarely went ashore. On appointment his annual wage was £56. By his retirement this had increased to £65.

Each of the four Keepers spent three weeks on duty at the Lighthouse followed, in turn, by one week’s liberty at the shore dwellings.

Until radio telephone was installed in 1951 communication with the shore was by semaphore. Each morning the Keeper ashore signaled any news of the wives and children while the Keeper on watch read the messages with the aid of a telescope from the lantern. Then, from a pulpit attached to the balcony rails, he transmitted the reply. Messages could be exchanged with passing vessels by Morse lamp, semaphore, or international code flag signals.

During his time ashore, in addition to looking after the shore station, attending to correspondence and daily signalling to his colleagues at Mew Island, the three lighted Donaghadee Sound buoys, Deputy, Foreland and Governor, were kept under nightly observation and regularly re-charged with gas by the liberty Keeper.

The BBC began broadcasting from Belfast in September 1924 and soon afterwards the Daily News and Star Lightstation Wireless Fund generously presented Mew Island with a two valve wireless set, with three sets of headphones, enabling the Keepers to tune into news, plays and music programmes. The station clocks could now be set accurately by the Greenwich time signal. Until then clocks were checked by means of a sundial which every lighthouse had.

Tragedy struck on a dark night in 1947 when Dick Power, a young keeper who had only that day arrived on the island, fell into one of the old gasometer tanks and drowned.

During the years 1955 to 1969 the radiobeacon was switched on in fog only, transmitting at intervals of one minute. This meant that when fog closed in suddenly at night all hands were called by the watchkeeper in the lantern. One Keeper started the fog signal engines while the other started a generator and put the radiobeacon into operation. The third resumed his watch in the lantern.

My association with Mew Island dates from 1951 when I spent a period of duty there as a Supernumary Assistant Keeper. Returning as an Assistant Keeper in 1957, I remained until 1964 and came back as Principal Keeper in 1975. I have the happiest memories of the substantial and pleasantly situated houses in Donaghadee for, in 1958, it was over one of their thresholds I carried my wife.

Exactly 100 years after my great grandfather had lit the light for the first time, it was my proud duty to switch off the light in the morning at the end of its first century of unbroken service, and that same evening to switch it on again to mark the commencement of its second hundred years.

Not long after the station’s centenary, with the deepest regret, I finally left the station where I had spent sixteen happy and memorable years of my service. At Mew Island, too, my father as well as my maternal grandfather and great grandfather had tended its light and its fog signal.

The Island

In springtime and summer Mew Island is the nesting place for many birds. The sea mew or common gull were numerous here until the turn of the century: now only one pair nests on the island. Until the early 1960s many thousands of terns - arctic, common, roseate and sandwich - nested here with a large colony of black-headed gulls. The herring and the black-backed gulls, however, driven by urbanisation from their traditional colonies further up on both sides of the Lough, found the island a convenient base for access to easy picking from the city and suburban rubbish tips. As a supplement to their diet they stole the eggs and devoured the chicks of the terns and the common and black-headed gulls, forcing the departure of these species. From the dumps has come the scourge of botulism, caused by scrap food being thrown away in plastic bags in which bacteria multiply. First noted in the 1980s, disease has destroyed many of the herring gulls and now terns and black-headed gulls seem set to return.

The island is most appealing and ever changing. In spring or summer grass and luxuriant bracken covers the island while bluebells, campion and other wild flowers adorn its valleys. Cultivated flowers lend a splash of colour to its flower bed while daffodils and narcissi line its neat pathways. Winter, however, transforms the scene when spray laden gales destroy almost all vegetation and the island assumes a bleak appearance until spring.

Automation


One of the Ruston & Hornsby fog signal engines at Mew Island Lighthouse (Photo: Alan McCann)

Mew Island, on demanning, will be monitored by radio telemetry via Donaghadee Lighthouse by the Telemetry Control Centre at the Lighthouse Depot.

The powerful diaphone, though still in first class working order, will remain silent and its three Ruston & Hornsby engines and Reavell compressors sit motionless. These units have been well maintained mechanically while the crankcase covers still bear the original Ruston & Hornsby crest. If not started regularly these magnificent horizontal diesel engines and associated apparatus will deteriorate and become useless.

Deserted and stripped of much of its equipment, Mew Island, the proud sentinel of Belfast Lough will now stand forlorn. It will, nevertheless, continue, as it has done for over a century, to flash its message of safety. Mariners of the future will have reason to bless this Lighthouse, just as those of the past have been comforted by the fourfold flash of its light, despite the sophisticated electronic navigational equipment now available.

The story of Mew Island can never be complete without mention of the successive generations of Keepers who faithfully tended its navigational aids and kept vigil constantly since this most important light was first established. Many a fogbound or weatherbound fisherman or yachtsman has been helped and given hospitality until he could be on his way again, and assistance called to vessels in distress through the prompt action of the Lighthouse staff. With the leaving of the Lightkeeping homo sapiens, the island will be left to the many seals who sunbathe on the rocks and fish the surrounding waters.

© 1994, W. R. Hamilton