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Full Description
Addresses the history of the Irish Lightkeeping Service, its importance and development, as told through the life story of a lightkeeper, his family and his postings
An inspiring story, researched and written by the lightkeeper's great-great-granddaughter
In June of 1837, as a teenaged Queen Victoria assumed the throne, an
Irish Catholic peasant laboured from dawn to dusk farming land owned by the
Marquess of Ely, a powerful peer of the Queen's realm. Alexander, Alec, Power,
a lowly estate worker, would live and die working these fields for his master,
while trapped in a feudal system from which there was no exit
But Alec did escape.
Through strength of character, tenacity, and an unlikely connection to a
prominent Irish Protestant official, Alec gained admittance into the
increasingly selective Irish Lightkeeping Service, becoming part of Britain's
national security posture, protecting maritime access for the nation over which
the young Queen Victoria ruled.
Alec and his wife,
Maggie, were hardworking people who spent their lives in dangerous places on
the coasts of Ireland, contending with nature at its wildest, raising their
family while protecting mariners. Enduring incredibly rugged, dangerous
conditions, surviving the Great Famine, this was truly life on the edge. Their lives were difficult, but their children grew to adulthood free of
the discrimination that oppressed much of the Irish population in the era.
After Alec died,
his son, Thomas, assumed the role of head of family. Trained to be a
lightkeeper, he was inexorably drawn to the most advanced technology and the
most dynamic business of his times, the railway. Under tremendous pressure to
find a means of support for his dependents, he spent years achieving success.
He became part of the new Irish middle class, emerging just as the Irish people
intensified their struggle to seek freedom and nationhood. The turmoil of this
struggle threatened the stability that Thomas had achieved.
This is the story
of courageous people with strong family values who persisted, against all odds,
in the years prior to the birth of the Irish nation. It is based on extensive
genealogical and historical research.
