Beacon

I have the pleasure of living in the second largest natural harbour in the world! I’m surrounded by nature, beauty and a rich maritime history. The sea calls to me, I miss it when I can’t see it. It is part of my core and part of who I am.

Last year I took part in a Fighting Words Workshop and we were asked to write something about where we were from, what was around us. All too often Cobh is associated with tragic maritime history, but there is so much more on offer in the harbour. Opening my eyes on a walk I spotted so many intriguing and inspiring things, but one in particular caught me more than most and here follows the story it inspired. The facts are fictionalised, but the core idea is true.

I hope you enjoy.

T

Xxx

BEACON

Life was turbulent for everyone, but for the men that sailed the seas – importing, exporting, keeping the country going, feeding growing families, dreaming of better lives – returning home could be the most dangerous part of their journeys.  The harbour sat wide and calm, deceptive in its serenity, but below the surface lurked its treacherous spine.

The spit bank had claimed many a ship for its own and dashed the dreams and taken the lives of many young sailors.  Young maidens had wept at piers, their tears mingling with the salty waves as they mourned for loved ones stolen on that last stretch.  The busiest working harbour in the west had notched its belt with far too many souls and it had been decided that the time had come to brand the bank, to stamp out the loss and to light the way.

It was a bold decision to choose Alexander, but the local seafaring folk had tried in the past to battle the spine, to mark the way, but time and time again the waves had claimed the markings for their own and returned the harbour to its bare and dangerous self.  The Atlantic meeting the Lee was a turbulent dance, and whatever was built needed to be able to withstand the passion of the meeting of the beasts. Alexander’s invention seemed like just the weapon needed to secure the way.  It would use the bank against itself, digging deep into the spine and holding tight no matter how tempestuous the meeting of the waters became.

Alexander loved that his work could play such an important part in the safety of all voyagers, that it could be a shining light, and could help them to see the way home.  He thought about what a sight it would be to round the mouth of a harbour after months at sea to that blinking light, proud, consistent and assured, guiding them into the harbour and home.  Would hearts soar?  Would songs break out on board at the sight of the final hurdle to pass?  In his mind, he saw the joy on their faces, the final preparations for homecomings. He saw the loved ones on the docks, handkerchiefs waving, smiling children, relieved mothers and his visions inspired the work.

The work was never going to be easy, none of his work was, but conditions proved tricky and Alexander found that the Spit Bank lighthouse was a job that would try his patience and his resolve.  It provided the kind of challenges that rocked him to the core; they attacked his resilience and highlighted his weakness. The ladders were awkward, the tides ensuring they were always wet,but he was a stubborn and proud man. He would not wait for fair weather; the job was on a timeline and he had deadlines and standards to meet, standards that he had set for himself and that far exceed those of an ordinary man.  Safety was the least of his concerns. The job had to be done, and done right, and he had to be there to inspect the work, to ensure that that was what was done.

He regularly rode out with a colleague to survey the harbour.  He left the small pier in all weathers: in wind and rain, in warm breezes and calm seas. He felt the ripple of gentle waves beneath the hull, as well as the violent pull of even larger waves. Sometimes, he had to grip to the edge of the boat so tightly that his knuckles went white. They went at low and high tide, feeling their way around the spine and coming to know the bank.  He went because he had to; he had to know the space, he had to know what it felt like in all weathers and all tides.  They might leave in the morning in calm seas, sun dancing on gentle reflective water, only to return home soaked and sodden, upended in a changing tide and left for hours trying to right the boat. They had gone in a blazing storm, his colleague reluctant to leave the safety of the pier, the boat and the sea doing their utmost to throw them both to the deep, but such was the nature of the job.  Alexander’s lighthouse would have to withstand everything and so should he.

He knew that people questioned his invention, not for its engineering, but because of the fact that he was the engineer. His disability understandably left many with doubts, but Alexander was self-assured. He knew his business, he knew his work and he knew his anchored platform would withstand the strength of the sea.  The surveying was important, being out there in the boat, being on the water, experiencing the tides, was part of the planning and preparation, but it was also a statement to the locals.  They had made the right decision; he was capable, his invention would speak for itself, his work was the best.  This light house that himself and George were building would stand for 100 years and more.  He had faith, and they would see.

Moving to the cove of Cork was a decision he made lightly. He knew he needed to be there; there were no difficult questions or decisions to be made, it was essential that he be on site to oversee everything.  The newly named Queenstown stood proud above the harbour, its buildings dashing this way and that in diagonal rows as they backed up the hill from the seafront.  His son rejoiced in its beauty and uniqueness as they approached from the mouth of the harbour.  It was a sight to see, but Alexander was not here for the architecture or the beauty of the town. He was here to do his job, to engineer a lighthouse to protect all those that admired the view as they sailed into port.

At night he sat by the fire, the children at his feet, a blanket draped around him to dispel the cold that was seeping into his bones.  There were days that the seas had claimed him. Unhappy with his progress, they licked up the tall steel legs of the platform and pulled him in.  He never saw it coming of course and was plunged rudely into the ice-cold waters, his breath caught in his chest before he knew what had hit him.  He had lost so many of his trusty walking sticks to the waters of the Lee that it was becoming a running joke to the men that years from now they would be spat back out and people would wonder what strange tragedy had occurred that so many old men had been lost together at the spit bank.  Alexander loved the idea that he would become part of the place, that he in some small way had contributed to the myths and shanties of this vibrant harbour. 

The Spitbank Lighthouse was more than myth or legend, and as it grew out of the mud flats, like a living creature rising from the spine, it was obvious that Alexander and his invention would become part of the history of Cobh and the county beyond; not only the history, in fact, but the future.  It had opened the harbour up to so much potential and had solidified Alexander’s reputation.  He was a gifted engineer, and his new invention would help to light the way for ships across the oceans, to span bridges across treacherous waters and open up new beginnings for so many people all over the world.  He had been sure it would work. He had trusted his meticulous surveying and detailing and he had known through the touch of his hand and the tap of his foot that it was solid, capable of withstanding the force of an angry ocean.  He never needed to see it, he knew it, because he felt it within him and trusted his process.

He was sad to leave sunny Queenstown when the work was done, sad to leave the like-minded friends he had made, sad to leave the bustling harbour town with its fishy smells and intriguing sounds, but the work had led to so many more jobs for him, that he knew he could not stay. As the house was packed up on that final day, the weather closing in fast from the east, the pressure  plummeting and  the temperature dropping, he felt the shift in his bones, the way he always read the weather. He thought of those dark turbulent winter nights, the angry white horses, those tired, weary voyagers making their final leg home.  He felt the sway in the wind, the tremor in his feet, he could almost taste the salty sea spray lashed against his face by gale force winds, almost feel the sea and the bank calling and threatening.  It had been his job to be the light, to mark the way, to clear the path into the belly of the harbour and onwards towards the city.  The safety of so many seamen and the generations to follow had been trusted to his hands, not his unseeing eyes. His blindness had never hampered this path, and his belief in himself and his work had lit the way, had built the lighthouse from the spine upwards. Its light shone outwards, bright and constant. 

Alexander Mitchell was a blind Irish engineer, whose screwpile lighthouse was completed in Cork harbour in 1853 and continues to safeguard ships through the harbour to this day.