We cross a narrow strip of land under vast skies and follow a slim road. It cuts a straight line through the heart of County Clare’s only peninsula – a jagged spearhead-shaped piece of land that dangles downward, like a tail, right into the Atlantic. The landscape tapers as the mouth of the River Shannon appears to the south, and the ocean to the north, until we reach the tip of the spear at what seems to be the very edge of the world; and there it stands, defiant and elevated on an outcrop – Loop Head Lighthouse.
From some point in childhood, my introverted self romanticised the role of a lightkeeper. Maybe it was Robert Eggers’ psychological thriller The Lighthouse (2019) that wreaked havoc with that elysium, but a lightkeeper’s cottage rental offered a flavour of the experience without the carnage.
