Look for a surefire cure for seasickness, and no better person to ask than someone who worked on a lightship off the Irish coast.
Lightship duty was both tough and boring, highly dangerous during wartime, and particularly hard on the stomach, as Gerald Butler of West Cork’s Galley Head lighthouse remembers.
His father and grandfather did that arduous duty on rolling stationary decks during their time with the Commissioners of Irish Lights, and his father told him how to get your sea legs.
That and other memories were recalled by Butler during a recent visit by Wavelengths to Galley Head light where he hosts visitors to its two cottages – once his family home – which have been beautifully restored by the Irish Landmark Trust.
Overnight stays in lighthouse cottages around the Irish coast have shot up by 60 per cent since 2019, and lighthouse tourism attracted 622,000 people last year, according to recently published figures by the Great Lighthouses of Ireland partnership.
More details on the Irish Landmark Trust lighthouse stays – where there is no Wifi and no television in keeping with the way keepers lived – can be found here
