Bridge Street Books
| Bridge Street Books, Bridge Street, Wicklow. Open Mon-Sat 9.30am-6pm Ph/fax: +353(0)404 62240 email: hilary.hamilton@esatclear.ie |
@6.30pm - 8pm
Join us for an
evening of stories of a childhood growing up along the Waterford Coast,
during the 1930s and 1940s. The lamp and
the lullaby of the title refer to the light and the sound made by Hook
Head & the fog signal of Coningbeg lightship.
the south west. Hook Head, the oldest lighthouse in the islands, was not visible to us. It stood away behind Newtown Head & Brownstown Head. But
with relentless regularity, at twenty-five second intervals, its powerful shaft of light raked the night sky. Mine Head, the highest light on the
Irish Coast, was visible across a wide expanse of open, capricious water that whispered or boomed as wind & tide dictated. Anchored way off south west of Hook Head was the Coningbeg Lightship. When the fog surreptiously crept in like massive rolls of white wool bandaging the adamantine cliffs of our black coast, then at 20-second intervals the
diaphonic fog signal on Coningbeg roared it's warning to ships: a
deep-reverberating boom, like the bellow of a wounded bull. So from my
country cradle, lighthouse beam & boom were my lamp & my lullaby......'
@ 1pm