Commissioners of Irish Lights
| Coimisinéirí Soilse na hÉireann | |
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| Motto | In Salutem Omnium (Latin; "For the Safety of All") |
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| Formation | 1786 |
| Type | Statutory Corporation |
| Headquarters | Dún Laoghaire, Ireland |
| Services | Navigational aids |
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Key people
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David Delamer, Chairperson Yvonne Shields, Chief executive |
| Website | www |
Commissioners of Irish Lights (Irish: Coimisinéirí Soilse na hÉireann ) is a maritime organisation delivering an essential safety service around the coast of Ireland, protecting the marine environment, and supporting the marine industry and coastal communities.
Irish Lights is also the body that serves as the General Lighthouse Authority for the island of Ireland plus its adjacent seas and islands. As the Irish Lighthouse Authority it oversees the coastal lights and navigation marks provided by the local lighthouse authorities; the county councils and port authorities.
It is funded by light dues paid by ships calling at ports in Ireland, pooled with dues raised similarly in the United Kingdom. This recognises that a large volume of shipping, typically transatlantic, relies on the lights provided by the Irish Lights.
Signal fires to guide shipping have long existed. Hook Head has the oldest nearly continuous light in Ireland, originally a signal fire or beacon tended by the monk Dubhán in the fifth century. Monks continued to maintain the light until the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland in 1641.
King Charles II re-established the lighthouse in 1667. He granted a patent for the erection of six lighthouses to Robert Reading, some replacing older lighthouses, at Hook Head, Baily Lighthouse at Howth Head, Howth sand-bar, Old Head of Kinsale, Barry Oge's castle (now Charlesfort, near Kinsale), and the Isle of Magee.
In 1704 Queen Anne transferred the lighthouses around the Irish coast to the Revenue Commissioners.
The Commissioners of Irish Lights, or "CIL", were established under an Act of the Parliament of Ireland passed in 1786 and entitled An Act for Promoting the Trade of Dublin, by rendering its Port and Harbour more commodious (26 Geo. III, c. xix). Lighthouses were not included until the 1810 Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. These Acts, as confirmed by the Irish Lights Commissioners (Adaptation) Order, 1935, remain the legislative basis for the CIL.
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Wikipedia