Site of Napoleonic Tower (Bolus Signal Tower).

Lookout post and ruin of barracks.

SIGNAL STATIONS AND LOOK-OUT POST ON BOLUS

BOLUS SIGNAL STATIONS

In 1803, fearing French attacks, Britain decided to build Signal Stations in Ireland and Britain. In Ireland 81 stations were built in coastal locations from Dublin to Malin Head via the South coast and along the Shannon. North or North East coast attacks were not feared. Each station in good viewing conditions was in sight of the station on either side. Most were built in 1804-1806.

There were three types of stations:

- Martello Towers … circular with strong defensive walls. Most were along the East and South coast.

- Signal Towers …square guardhouses manned by a signal officer and a few soldiers.

- Signal Stations with Barracks….large rectangular barracks in a walled enclosure.

Signalling was done by flags, pennants and black balls made of canvas covered hoops. Manning was by naval reserves called “Sea Fencibles”, mostly local fishermen and merchant seamen, under naval officers including a signals’ officer. Local yeomanry guarded the stations.

The stations were closed soon after Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo in 1815.

A map of “Sites of Signal Stations 1804-1806” shows the following in Iveragh: No. 39 “Hog Island” (Scariff Island); No. 40 Bolus Head; No. 41 Bray Head. The nearest stations to these were No.38 Dursey Island and No.42 Great Blasket.

Bolus has the remains of two stations. A Signal Tower had been at least partly built at Bolus Point, on a site now owned by Jimmy Curran. Its foundations (14ft x 14ft inside) are still visible. It was meant to be used in conjunction with a station to its East planned for Scariff Island. However, for some reason, the proposed station at Scariff Island was built instead 7km to its North East at Hogs Head, which is not visible from Bolus Point. This new location at Hogs Head required the building of a new station 1km to the N.W. of Bolus Point at Bolus Head from which Hogs Head is visible.

The second station, a signal Barracks, the same as the one at Hogs Head, was built at Bolus Head. It is a two-storey stone building at one end of a walled enclosure, which could be protected by gunfire from loopholes (tapered apertures) set in angle bastions (projections) at its corners. Entrance was by a first floor doorway accessed by a stone ramp and withdrawable platform. The building is now in ruins. Its owner, Jimmy Murphy, said that no roofing material had been found in the ruins, and that local folklore had it that it was never roofed in case its occupants might get too comfortable and neglect their duties.

BOLUS HEAD LOOK-OUT POST

The Second World War began on 3rd September 1939. Neutral Ireland had established a Coast Watching Service in April 1939 and had begun building a series of 83 look-out posts (LOPs) in coastal locations. The force was made up of Local Defence Force (LDF) and other local volunteers. The watchers were nicknamed “The Saygulls” as they were perched on high places surveying sea and sky.

The service’s job was to report the presence of aircraft, ships, submarines, unexploded mines, etc. It cooperated with G2, the Military Intelligence Branch of the Defence Forces. Training was provided in signalling, identification of ships, submarines and aircraft, Morse code, etc.

The watchers were well paid. Each LOP was manned in eight or twelve hour shifts by two watchers - one inside and the other outside. Their equipment consisted of telescope, binoculars, aircraft and ship identification silhouettes, log book, signal flags, lamps, bicycles, etc. Many reports initially had to be taken by bicycle to the nearest telephone. By mid-1940 telephones were installed at many LOPs. Priority was obtained for calls by using the words “Defence Message – Priority”.

Most LOPs were in identical flat-roofed concrete buildings – exceptions include LOPs like Bray Head, Valentia, where the 1806 Signal Tower was used. They were 9ft by 13ft, with six angled windows at the seaward side. They were built with 137 pre-cast inter-locking concrete blocks. A fireplace was provided for heating and cooking.

In 1943/1944 most LOPs had their number and the word EIRE in large white letters located in a nearby field to warn pilots that they were over a neutral country. They were also great navigational aids in daylight for Allied pilots. Many of these signs are now gone.

Most LOPs are now in ruins. In the late 1940s and 1950s Ballinskellig’s fisherman and cable-ship pilot, John Barry, and local Coast Life Saving Service units made un-successful appeals to have a Coast Watching Service re-established and the LOPs manned to report incursions of foreign fishing trawlers.

The story of Bolus Head LOP No. 34 began with the selection and pegging out of the site. In negotiations conducted in Irish with the landowner, Michael Murphy, it was agreed that the site could be used by coast-watchers. The blocks for the building were brought by army lorry to the end of the road and by pony and cart and donkey from there. Turf was brought by pony and cart half way up by Paddy O’Sullivan’s father. Paddy brought it from there with a neighbour’s donkey and baskets. They were paid by Corporal Jeremiah O’Sullivan. A phone line to Ballinskelligs Garda Barracks was installed after some time.

The watchers at this and the others LOPs, who regularly braved severe and tedious working conditions, passed on much information that was invaluable to Ireland and the Allies, with whom it was secretly shared, and who later acknowledged its vital contribution to the war effort.

Many sightings of aircraft were made. An entry by Volunteer Curran in the Bolus LOP log book (kindly lent to me by the family of the late Jeremiah O’Sullivan, Killonecaha, The Glen, Corporal at the LOP) reads:

”24thFebruary 1944, 0107. Sighted large light 13 miles west of post. Stationary. Vis. Moderate.” - Lambs Head and Bray Head LOPs made similar sightings. Skelligs lighthouse keepers on duty, including Frank McCarthy of Waterville, had “heard a crash and three explosions and saw a flash of light on the sea” at 0103. After probably mistaking a radar echo from the Rock for a submarine, the wing tip of American Liberator H/110 plane, on an anti-submarine patrol out of England, had struck the pinnacle of the 705ft high Great Skellig - streaks of paint found later on the Rock matched the plane’s paint. The fuel in its wing tank ignited, its bombs exploded and it crashed into the sea. The aircrew of eleven perished. There is a monument to them at Allagheemore.

The LOP was abandoned at the end of the war and the phone was connected to the Glen shop. The structure, owned by Jimmy Curran, still survives.

Bolus Head LOP Coastwatch Members (the list may be incomplete):- Corporals: M. Leahy, J. O’Sullivan. Volunteers: M. Brennan, J. Connor, S. Corcoran, P. Curran, M. Finucane, M. Fitzgerald, P. Fogarty, C. Hanafin, J. Moriarty, P. O’Shea, M. O’Sullivan.

Perhaps the EIRE sign could be reinstated and an information plaque erected near the Barracks and Look-Out Post in memory of those hardy Sea Fencibles and ‘Saygulls’ of Bolus.

Thanks to: Landowners and many others; Kennedy’s (2008) Guarding Neutral Ireland; Kerrigan’s (1995) Castles and Fortifications in Ireland 1485-1945, and Frank Donaldson and The Warplane Research Group of Ireland’s (1990) The Fatal Echo. Further information welcome –thomasfhorgan@gmail.com