11.11.2025, 18:00 P.M.

Ireland’s Lighthouses: Two centuries of architecture and art by David Hare, television producer/director and author.

This is the sixth talk in the Water & Ireland's Architectural Heritage autumn Conservation Education talk series.

Abstract: The Poolbeg Lighthouse (and the Great South Wall on which it’s located) were masterpieces of Georgian engineering. Most Irish lighthouses were built in the late Georgian and early Victorian periods, while the Fastnet Lighthouse went into service in 1904 and the Kish Bank Lighthouse (the last lighthouse to be built in Ireland) was designed and commissioned in the 1960s. This period of two hundred years offers a range of architectural designs, and lighthouses became popular subjects for painters. Lighthouses present unique maintenance and conservation challenges and, given the attachment many people have to their local lighthouse, the solutions are sometimes controversial.

David Hare has been a television producer/director for 35 years, specialising in historical documentaries and food and travel programmes - two very different genres. In 2022 he wrote ’The Great Lighthouses of Ireland’ which was nominated for an A Post Book award and which entered the Sunday Times Bestsellers list. In 2024 he wrote the Illustrated Encyclopedia of Irish Lighthouses, nominated for a 2025 KPMG Children’s Books Award. He lives in Derrynane, Co Kerry.

Image: Poolbeg Lighthouse, County Dublin (image courtesy of David Hare)