Brow Head (Irish: Ceann Bró) is the most southerly point of mainland Ireland. It is in the rural townland of Mallavoge near Crookhaven in County Cork, Ireland. It is 3.8 km east of Mizen Head at latitude 51.43ºN.
The signal tower on Brow Head is part of a chain of towers built in 1804, during British rule, to give warning of a French invasion. Originally the signalling was done with a system of flags and blackballs on masts. Brow Head, or Mallavogue, was a mining area in the 19th century and the remains of the mines and the miners' houses can still be seen.
In 1904, Marconi’s Wireless Telegraph Co. Ltd. entered into a contract with the Commissioners of Irish Lights to put telegraphic equipment and aerials on the Fastnet Rock. The telegraphic station was moved up to Brow Head where the signal tower equipment had been used for so long to contact passing ships. Messages were sent to the Fastnet Rock Lighthouse by signalling methods and then relayed to the Brow Head station by wireless telegraphy for relaying on to the recipients.
Famous quotes containing the words brow and/or head:
“His reversed body gracefully curved, his brown legs hoisted like a Tarentine sail, his joined ankles tacking, Van gripped with splayed hands the brow of gravity, and moved to and fro, veering and sidestepping, opening his mouth the wrong way, and blinking in the odd bilboquet fashion peculiar to eyelids in his abnormal position. Even more extraordinary than the variety and velocity of the movements he made in imitation of animal hind legs was the effortlessness of his stance.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“Thus Satan talking to his neerest Mate
With Head up-lift above the wave, and Eyes
That sparkling blaz’d, his other Parts besides
Prone on the Flood, extended long and large
Lay floating many a rood, in bulk as huge
As whom the Fables name of monstrous size,
Titanian, or Earth-born, that warr’d on Jove,
Briarios or Typhon, whom the Den
By ancient Tarsus held, or that Sea-beast
Leviathan,”
—John Milton (1608–1674)