Mew Island Lighthouse

Mew Island Lighthouse has flashed the same signal – four white flashes every 30 seconds – off the mouth of Belfast Lough since 1 November 1884. Its most remarkable piece of engineering, though, is no longer on the island. The enormous lens that sat in the lantern for most of the 20th century was lifted out in 2015 and now stands, restored and free to walk around, on the Titanic Walkway in Belfast. If you want to see what made this lighthouse matter, that is where to go: you can get closer to the optic in a Belfast gallery than you ever could 37 metres up a tower on a locked island.

You can’t land on the island

Public access to Mew Island is limited to Copeland Bird Observatory volunteers and the crews who service the light. There are no visitor landings and no tours of the island itself, so the tower is something you see from the water rather than walk up to. Seasonal boat trips out of Donaghadee harbour circle the Copeland group and give close views of the tower, the rock formations and the seabird colonies on the way past.

Weather and tides run the timetable. The currents around the islands are strong, sailings are called off readily, and it is worth phoning an operator before you drive out rather than turning up on spec. Donaghadee makes the natural base in any case: free parking along the harbour, a few independent cafés, and the town’s own stubby 19th-century lighthouse on the pier. Ballycopeland Windmill is a short run inland if you want to make a morning of it.

The Great Light

For most of the last century the tower carried a biform hyper-radial optic, one of the largest lighthouse lenses ever built. It came from Tory Island off Donegal and was installed here in 1928, standing seven metres tall and weighing around ten tonnes. In 2015 it was removed, restored with a National Lottery Heritage Fund grant, and put on display as The Great Light in Belfast’s Maritime Mile. Entry is free, and the exhibit explains how a lens this size bent a single lamp into a beam ships could pick up far out to sea. Mew Island now runs on a solar-powered LED a fraction of the size.

From a coal fire to an LED

People have lit fires for shipping on the Copelands since 1711, when a coal-burning brazier was set going on neighbouring Lighthouse Island – one of only four cottage-type coal lights on the whole Irish coast, alongside the Old Head of Kinsale, Loop Head and Howth Head. In 1815 a 52-foot stone tower designed by George Halpin replaced it, lit by 27 Argand oil lamps. As Belfast’s shipbuilding and linen trade grew, the harbour authorities wanted a stronger light in a better position, and engineer William Douglass’s tower on Mew Island took over on the night of 1 November 1884. The old Lighthouse Island tower was shut the same day; its stump still stands. Mew Island was automated in 1996.

The bird observatory

The island is a National Trust bird sanctuary, and the former keeper’s cottage has been rebuilt as the Copeland Bird Observatory. Volunteers run it, ringing and counting birds through the spring and autumn migrations, and basic overnight accommodation is available to those who come out to help. This is effectively the only way onto the island, and it is fieldwork rather than a day out – places are arranged in advance through the observatory. Razorbills, guillemots and kittiwakes work the water around the islands, with waders such as curlews and oystercatchers along the shoreline through the winter.

Practical information

Landing on Mew Island isn’t an option for casual visitors, and the ground is steep and uneven even for those who do. For everyone else the tower is a boat-trip sight – so pick a calm, clear evening out of Donaghadee, and don’t count on the trip running if there’s any weather in the forecast.