Qualla: Eask Tower

Eask Tower: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Warrenfish, CC BY-SA 3.0. A wooden hand points seaward from the top of Carhoo Hill, and it has been pointing for nearly two centuries. The Eask Tower was built in 1847, the worst year of the Great Famine, when entire parishes were emptying through emigration or death. Above Dingle Harbour, hungry men cut and stacked stone for a beacon whose only job was to keep boats from missing the narrow opening below. The structure they raised is solid the whole way through - not hollow, not habitable, just a finger of masonry on a hilltop, telling sailors where Ireland was hiding its harbour.

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Image: Warrenfish | CC BY-SA 3.0

Eask Tower: A Hand That Saves Boats

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Warrenfish, Public domain. Dingle Harbour has what mariners call a blind mouth. From the sea, the opening is not where you would expect it to be - the headlands fold in such a way that the channel disappears against the cliffs until you are nearly on top of it. The Eask Tower was built to fix this. A woode...

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Image: Warrenfish | Public domain

Eask Tower: The Famine That Built It

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit John ., CC BY 2.0. 1847 is remembered in Ireland as Black '47, the year the Great Famine reached its worst. The British government's response combined cash relief, soup kitchens and, controversially, public works - hard physical labour exchanged for wages just barely sufficient to buy food. Carhoo ...

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Image: John . | CC BY 2.0

Eask Tower: The View from the Top

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Cargoking, CC BY 3.0. Carhoo Hill is not high, but it sits in exactly the right place. From the base of the tower, the eye runs west along the spine of the Dingle Peninsula to the Blasket Islands, those dark humps that were inhabited until 1953 and have been silent since. Slea Head juts into the Atlan...

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Image: Cargoking | CC BY 3.0

Eask Tower: A Tower of Many Wars

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CC BY-SA 2.0. The mariners' beacon was the original purpose, but the tower picked up extra duties as the centuries moved. The 19th-century beacon equipment was installed in the Victorian era, when the British Admiralty was mapping and lighting every coast it could reach. Then, during the Secon...

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Image: CC BY-SA 2.0

Eask Tower: Standing in the Wind

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CC BY-SA 2.0 de. What strikes you, climbing Carhoo Hill from the harbour road, is how exposed the tower is. There is no shelter. The Atlantic wind comes off Slea Head and hits the hilltop without resistance. The locals say you can rarely stand at the base on a calm day. And yet the tower does not...

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Image: CC BY-SA 2.0 de