Rock Island and Crookhaven Lighthouse from landside - geograph

Rock Island () is a promontory in

West Cork West Cork ( ga, Iarthar Chorcaí) is a tourist region and municipal district in County Cork, Ireland. As a municipal district, West Cork falls within the administrative area of Cork County Council, and includes the towns of Bantry, Castletownber ...

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

, situated about south of the village of

Goleen Goleen () is a small rural village in County Cork on the south-western tip of Ireland. Farming, tourism and construction work are among the main occupations of the local people. Location Goleen is located towards the south-western end of the ...

, at the entrance to the inlet of

Crookhaven Crookhaven () is a village in County Cork, Ireland, on the most southwestern tip of the island of Ireland. With an out-of-season population of about sixty, it swells in the summer season to about four hundred, when the occupants of the seasonal ...

. Not a true island, Rock Island is surrounded on three sides by sea while a small strip of land with a road connects it to the mainland. It is notable for the Crookhaven Lighthouse (built in 1843 on the site of a former structure) which lights the way into the natural harbour of Crookhaven. Surrounding the lighthouse are nine cottages (built in the 1860s), once the property of Irish Lighthouses, now privately owned holiday cottages. These were formerly the accommodation for the lighthouse keepers and their families of three local lighthouses:

Mizen Head Mizen Head ( ga, Carn Uí Néid) is traditionally regarded as the most southerly point of mainland Ireland. It is at the end of the Mizen Peninsula in the district of Carbery in County Cork. Geography Mizen Head is one of the extreme points ...

and

Fastnet Rock Fastnet Lighthouse is a 54m high lighthouse situated on the remote Fastnet Rock in the Atlantic Ocean. It is the most southerly point of Ireland and lies southwest of Cape Clear Island and from County Cork on the Irish mainland. The current l ...

. The lighthouses are now fully automatic, requiring no keepers. Towards the west end of the peninsula is a terrace of houses built in 1907 as a coastguard station, now converted to private holiday accommodation; this replaced an earlier range of buildings erected in the early 19th century, when Crookhaven was a centre both for legitimate coastal shipping and for smuggling activity. A watch tower was built on Rock Island , after the attempted French landing at Bantry in 1796.

References

{{coord, 51.477, -9.705, region:IE_type:landmark, display=title Headlands of County Cork Tourist attractions in County Cork

See also

References