ONE OF THE problems our Service has always been faced with is access to offshore rocks and islands-particularly those on the west and south-west coasts. In the past Lighthouse Keepers and other staff suffered hardship through overdue reliefs, often for lengthy periods and regularly faced discomfort and danger at boat landings.

As far back as 1957 the Commissioners were considering the use of helicopters in the Service. This followed the rescue by a Royal Navy helicopter from Derry of three men marooned without food on Blackrock Sligo the previous October.
Approaches to the Commissioners were made by several aircraft manufacturers and operators to share with other organisations in the cost of providing a civil helicopter service in Ireland. In October 1959 representatives of the Commissioners attended a demonstration of Irish Helicopter's Hiller UH 12-E three-seater helicopter at Dublin Airport. The Inspector of Lights & Marine Superintendent subsequently reported to the Board that this type of helicopter would not be suitable for lighthouse operations, and for some years little more was heard about the subject, though a number of emergency evacuations took place.

In 1966 serious studies of the viability of a regular lighthouse helicopter service were begun. West and south-west coast stations were surveyed and possible landing sites identified. It was decided to build proper helicopter pads at seven of the most difficult off-shore lighthouses including Fastnet, primarily for emergencies. A sum of £3,900 was included in the 1967/8 estimates.

Advice on the design of helipads was sought from the Department of Defence, and a group of Air Corps officers visited Bull Rock, Skelligs, and Inishtearaght, and flew around Fastnet to carry out preliminary surveys.

That winter the relief of Blackrock Mayo went 33 days overdue and the Keepers reserve provisions were exhausted. It was decided to attempt the relief by helicopter and this was accomplished successfully by Trans World Helicopters based at Shannon.

In September 1968 the relief of Blackrock Mayo again went overdue-not for so long, but this time one of the Keepers (Thomas Murphy, now Attendant of Kish Lighthouse) was due ashore to get married and was afraid he would miss his wedding. Arrangements were made for an Air Corps helicopter from Baldonnel to bring him ashore just in time.

In October 1968 the Inspecting Committee decided that reliefs of a number of rock stations on the south-west and west coast for a trial period should begin as soon as all the helipads were ready.

As there was no suitable location on Fastnet Rock on which to build a helipad it was decided to demolish some of the old stores on the rock and replace them with new stores with a reinforced concrete flat roof on which a helicopter could land.
About 400 tons of building materials were loaded on board the Irish Lights Tender Atlanta at Dun Laoghaire in May 1969. This included 7,000 concrete blocks, 200 tons of sand, gravel, and cement, and 25 tons of other materials. Special lifting gear was designed to handle the material on the rock. The materials could not be landed on Fastnet all at once as there was only space on the rock for around 150 tons of unused materials. Atlanta landed the materials on the rock at intervals from June to August as the work progressed. The construction of the new stores, with the helipad on the roof, was completed by the end of September except for some finishing work which was left until the following spring.

On 29 October 1969 Fastnet became the first Irish lighthouse at which a normal scheduled relief was carried out by helicopter, when at 0950 hours Edward F. Hickey, Principal Keeper, returned to his station from Castletownbere in an Alouette III helicopter operated by Irish Helicopters Ltd. Flan Egan, Assistant Keeper, went ashore on liberty on the return flight. This was a milestone in the use of helicopters in Ireland and in the history of Irish Lights.

During the following six months 156 reliefs were carried out by helicopter. Of those 150 were completed on schedule and the remaining six were each only one day overdue.

The intention had been at the end of the six-months' trial to revert to boat reliefs and evaluate the results of the trial. However, the trial was so successful that to revert to boat reliefs was unthinkable.