Account of the Skerryvore lighthouse : $b with notes on the illumination of lighthousesStevenson, Alan
History
Account of the Skerryvore lighthouse : $b with notes on the illumination of lighthouses
Stevenson, Alan
Skerryvore Lighthouse (Hebrides, Scotland)
This list is made up chiefly from data kindly furnished to me by the
Rev. Neil Maclean, the Minister of Tyree and Coll, whose long residence
on the former island has afforded him ample opportunity for making
observations on the subject. It is not to be imagined, however, that
Mr Maclean’s list, which is made up from recollection, contains a full
catalogue of the disasters caused by the Skerryvore, within the dates
which it cites. Very many vessels were wrecked on this dangerous reef
whose names could never be learned, and of which nothing but portions
of the drift wood or cargo came ashore; and there have, no doubt, been
many shipwrecks of which not a single trace has been left. Nothing,
indeed, is more probable than that many of the foreign vessels whose
course lay through the North Irish Channel, and whose fate has been
briefly and vaguely described, as “foundered at sea,” have met their
fate on the _infames scopuli_ of the Skerryvore. It is also well known
that the Tyree Fishermen were in the constant practice of visiting
the Skerryvore, after gales, in quest of wrecks and their produce, in
finding which they were but too often successful.
* * * * *
The natives of Tyree have many traditions of vessels having struck on
the Skerryvore and gone to pieces; but, as might have been anticipated,
few traces of this were to be found on the Rocks themselves, the
breach of sea which sweeps over them during storms being sufficient to
remove any heavy bodies which might be left there after a shipwreck.
Some relics, however, were found during the progress of the works, and
among the rest an anchor which was fished up close to the Rock, and
which appeared to have belonged to a vessel of about 150 tons burden.
It had been wasted to a perfect shadow by the action of the sea, and
was covered with a thick coating of seaweed and barnacles. Although,
however, the Rocks themselves do not retain the proofs of the disasters
of which they have been the cause, the shores of the neighbouring
Islands, during the progress of the works, were frequently strewed with
drift wreck in such a manner as clearly to indicate what had taken
place on the shoals round the Skerryvore.
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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