Overview
The lighthouse whose ruins stand on Cape Clear Island (Oileán Cléire) failed at the one thing a lighthouse is built to do. Established in 1818 high on the island’s southern shoulder, its beam was too often lost in the fog and low cloud that pool around high ground, and in 1854 it was switched off for good. Its replacement is the tower that now draws the boats: Fastnet Rock Lighthouse, six and a half kilometres out to sea, the tallest and widest rock lighthouse ever built in Ireland or Britain. Cape Clear Ferries runs the tours that circle it, and the island itself – Ireland’s southernmost inhabited land, a Gaeltacht where Irish is still the everyday tongue – is where you land in between.
If you only do one thing here, take the day tour that circles the Fastnet and gives you a couple of hours ashore. The evening twilight cruise is shorter and cheaper, but you stay on the boat.
The old lighthouse
George Halpin, the engineer behind dozens of Irish lights, designed the 1818 tower with a revolving lamp of twelve Argand burners and reflectors. The problem was the site itself. By the 1840s Trinity House was blunt about it: the light sat too high, and mist hid it far too often for a coast this dangerous. The 1847 wreck of the American liner Stephen Whitney, which went down nearby with heavy loss of life, forced the issue and a new light on the Fastnet was commissioned. Cape Clear’s tower was discontinued on 1 January 1854. What survives is a stone ruin beside a Napoleonic-era signal tower, the two once joined by a covered walkway that is long gone.
Fastnet Rock Lighthouse
The granite Fastnet tower was built between 1899 and 1904 after the earlier cast-iron light proved no match for Atlantic storms. It is made of 2,047 dovetailed blocks of Cornish granite, some weighing up to three tonnes, cut so each interlocks with its neighbours. The tower stands 54m tall, and its white flash every five seconds carries 28 nautical miles (52km). Emigrants sailing for America, including those aboard the Titanic, watched it fall astern as the last of Ireland – which is how it earned the name Ireland’s Teardrop. It was automated in March 1989 and has been unmanned since.
The tour and what to expect
On the day tour the boat makes two passes around the rock, close in, which is when the cameras come out and the guides talk through the engineering and the keepers’ lives. Be honest with yourself about the conditions before you book: on a flat calm day the Fastnet is a handsome tower on a quiet sea, but it earns its reputation in a swell, when the Atlantic breaks white against the granite. You can’t land on it – nobody can – you circle it.
After roughly a 40-minute crossing the tour spends two to three hours on Cape Clear. The island has no cars for visitors, so it’s all on foot: the harbour, a 5,000-year-old passage grave and standing stones, and a memorial to the 1979 Fastnet Race, when a storm caught the offshore fleet mid-race. There’s time for lunch at the harbour café before the return sailing.
Sunset and twilight cruises
On the island
The Cape Clear Heritage Centre, open daily from June to September, holds a replica of the Cape Clear Stone with its 5,000-year-old markings and a multimedia display on the Fastnet. Two waymarked walks cover the ground: the Green Loop (4km, easy) and the Red Loop (6km, moderate), both taking in cliff views. Time a visit for the first full weekend of September and you’ll land in the middle of the Cape Clear International Storytelling Festival, one of the island’s set-piece events.
Wildlife
The water between Cape Clear and the Fastnet is a reliable one for marine life. Dolphins and seals turn up regularly, basking sharks in spring and summer, and whales on the lucky days. Gannets and puffins are among the seabirds on the cliffs. The light off the Atlantic shifts constantly, which is half the reason photographers rate the crossing.
Practical information
Cape Clear Ferries sails from Baltimore all year (40-minute crossing) and from Schull in June–August only (25 minutes). The combined Fastnet and Cape Clear day tour runs about 5.5 hours; the evening cruise is around three.
| Service | Duration | Price (from) |
|---|---|---|
| Fastnet Rock day tour (incl. Cape Clear stop) | 5.5 hrs | €48 |
| Fastnet Rock sunset / twilight cruise | ~3 hrs | €48 |
| Schull ↔ Cape Clear return ferry | 25 min | €20 |
| Baltimore ↔ Cape Clear return ferry | 40 min | €20 |
Booking & contact
- Website: capeclearferries.com
- Email: info@capeclearferries.com
Getting there and parking
- All sailings are weather-dependent; cancellations are uncommon but do happen in a big blow.
- Park at Baltimore harbour. There are no cars on Cape Clear for non-residents, so you walk once you land.
- Wheelchair users should ring the operator ahead, who will arrange boarding where the boat and tide allow.
Ferry times and tour availability shift with the season and the tides, so check the operator’s site before you set out, and book ahead for July and August sailings.