Irish Brazier-Lighthouses

In Ireland there is a small number of I unusual structures quite unlike lighthouses elsewhere. They consist of a stone-vaulted keeper's cottage containing some stairs leading up to a small platofrm on the roof on which was displayed an open fire; this could be of coal, wood or at times turf or peat. In most cases they stand on high headlands, but one example at low elevation was provided with a tower. The principal difference between these and their nearest parallels–at the North Forelands, Isle of May or Flamborough Head, where the residential quarters are contained in the structure of the tower–is the Irish insistence on a vaulted single-storied cottage. Their vaulted roof is clearly a protection against fire, but the form springs from the ancient tradition of stone-vaulted ooratories such as the famous Gallarus in Kerry.