History
Signal fires to guide shipping have long existed. Hook Head is the oldest continuous (with some interruptions) light in Ireland, it was 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 reestablished the lighthouse in 1657. 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" was 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 remains the legislative basis for the CIL.
The CIL has recently moved its headquarters from Dublin to a purpose-built new building in Harbour Road, Dún Laoghaire.
Read more about this topic: Commissioners Of Irish Lights
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“The whole history of civilisation is strewn with creeds and institutions which were invaluable at first, and deadly afterwards.”
—Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)