Ted Sweeney, Appreciation
Ted Sweeney of Blacksod, one of the Service's oldest and much
loved characters, passed away quietly on Monday 26 March 2001. He
was in his 93rd year and had not been well for the past few years,
but his declining health and failing eyesight had little effect on
his characteristic good humour or obvious delight in the company of
his family and friends.
Ted was born in 1906 in Blacksod, where his mother was the local post-mistress, and on leaving school he spent his early working years distributing oil by road transport throughout the west Cork area on behalf of Shell-BP.
In 1933, at the age of 27, when Blacksod Lighthouse became unwatched, Ted was appointed Attendant and remained in that position for the following 48 years-surely a record incumbency for a lighthouse Attendant.
He chalked up a first in 1969 when, with the permission of the Commissioners, his lighthouse also housed the local Post Office, with Ted as Post Master, for three years while a new Post Office was under construction.
He became widely known and liked among the many Irish Lights people who passed through the Blacksod area over the years. These included the Keepers who served on Blackrock and Eagle Island Lighthouses, Coast Workers on maintenance visits, helicopter pilots carrying out relief trips, and the crews of the lighthouse tenders that occasionally sought shelter from westerly gales in Blacksod Bay.
Ted and his wife Maureen were most helpful and hospitable to Service personnel who might have to wait for a boat, helicopter, or bus, sometimes on dark winter nights or bleak early mornings. Their cosy lighthouse kitchen, with tea and homemade brown bread, was an oasis of comfort for the waiting traveller.
He was a great raconteur and always had a fund of hilarious stories to tell, preferably over a couple of pints, many of which were directed against himself but all reflecting his abiding interest in the more humourous idiosyncrasies of the human condition.
On a beautiful sunny March day we joined Maureen, family, and friends to lay Ted to rest in the local graveyard, close by the seashore-an appropriate last resting place for a man who devoted so much of his long life to the safety of those who sail upon the sea.
O.M. Deignan
Ted was born in 1906 in Blacksod, where his mother was the local post-mistress, and on leaving school he spent his early working years distributing oil by road transport throughout the west Cork area on behalf of Shell-BP.
In 1933, at the age of 27, when Blacksod Lighthouse became unwatched, Ted was appointed Attendant and remained in that position for the following 48 years-surely a record incumbency for a lighthouse Attendant.
He chalked up a first in 1969 when, with the permission of the Commissioners, his lighthouse also housed the local Post Office, with Ted as Post Master, for three years while a new Post Office was under construction.
He became widely known and liked among the many Irish Lights people who passed through the Blacksod area over the years. These included the Keepers who served on Blackrock and Eagle Island Lighthouses, Coast Workers on maintenance visits, helicopter pilots carrying out relief trips, and the crews of the lighthouse tenders that occasionally sought shelter from westerly gales in Blacksod Bay.
Ted and his wife Maureen were most helpful and hospitable to Service personnel who might have to wait for a boat, helicopter, or bus, sometimes on dark winter nights or bleak early mornings. Their cosy lighthouse kitchen, with tea and homemade brown bread, was an oasis of comfort for the waiting traveller.
He was a great raconteur and always had a fund of hilarious stories to tell, preferably over a couple of pints, many of which were directed against himself but all reflecting his abiding interest in the more humourous idiosyncrasies of the human condition.
On a beautiful sunny March day we joined Maureen, family, and friends to lay Ted to rest in the local graveyard, close by the seashore-an appropriate last resting place for a man who devoted so much of his long life to the safety of those who sail upon the sea.
O.M. Deignan