Publication Account
Date 1985
Event ID 1018728
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1018728
The Rinns of Islay Lighthouse on Orsay island at the western tip of Islay was designed by Robert Stevenson and constructed in 1824-5. The principal features of the lighthouse are the storied tower with the light keepers' houses and a storehouse laid out to form a courtyard. The lighting of a beacon was not always a sufficient guide to mariners, for they often had to be able to differentiate one light from another; and Stevenson created a mechanism for the Rinns ofIslay light that was alternately stationary and revolving, producing what was described as a bright 'flush' of light every twelve seconds 'without those intervals of darkness which characterise other lights on the coast'.
The weights of the mechanism that created the turning of the light were formerly a feature of the central well of the spiral staircase that led to the lightroom. Along with the lights at Buchan Ness and Little Ross Island, at the entrance to Kirkcudbright Bay, Lord Kelvin described the Rinns of Islay as 'undoubtedly the three best revolving lights in the world'. The other main lights on Islay are those ofRuvaal (NR 425791), completed in 1859, MacArthur's Head and Loch Indaal completed in 1861 and 1869.
Pride in the traditions of the Northern Lighthouse Board may be seen in a memorial stone in Kilchoman burial-ground (NR 216632), where there is an evocative representation of the Board's emblem with a commemoration presumably to a member of the family of the assistant keeper of the Rinns of Islay lighthouse in 1845.
Information from ‘Exploring Scotland’s Heritage: Argyll and the Western Isles’, (1985).
