Fanad Head Lighthouse
— the white tower the Atlantic keeps finding.
Not only on a wall.
“At the mouth of Lough Swilly, where Donegal turns its hardest corner into the Atlantic. The lighthouse was built after the loss of HMS Saldanha in 1811. The lamp was first lit in 1817, on a tower designed by George Halpin. The keepers' cottages still stand around it; a few have been opened for overnight stays, and the wind on the headland does not stop. The Wild Atlantic Way reaches it from the south. From the north there is nothing else: only the sea, and the lamp that has been kept here for two hundred years.
Fanad Head Lighthouse, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
Each tile ships in a kraft box, tied with cream ribbon, with a handwritten note from the studio if you'd like to add one.
Three or five different vistas, hung together — a chapter of places you've been, or want to go.
The place, in three passes.
Fanad Head sits at the eastern entrance to Lough Swilly, on the north coast of County Donegal, where the Fanad Peninsula meets the Atlantic. The Commissioners of Irish Lights first lit the lamp in 1817, six years after the wreck of HMS Saldanha at the lough's mouth claimed more than two hundred lives. The tower was designed by the inspector of works George Halpin and has been continuously kept since. It is reached by the R268 from Portsalon, the small village at the foot of the peninsula. Condé Nast Traveler has named it among the most beautiful lighthouses in the world. There is no other way in.
The lamp at Fanad Head has been kept continuously since 1817, making it one of the older operating lights on the Irish coast. The original optic has been modernised many times across two centuries, and the station was automated in the late twentieth century by the Commissioners of Irish Lights. The keepers' cottages on the headland, now run as self-catering accommodation by Fanad Lighthouse, were inhabited by keeping families for more than 160 years before then. The tower is painted white, with a single black band at the gallery. From the headland the beam reaches across the entrance to Lough Swilly toward Inishtrahull Sound, where the Atlantic begins in earnest.
The lighthouse is open to the public through guided tours run by Fanad Lighthouse Tours, generally from spring through autumn and weather permitting. Tickets are booked through the visitor centre at the gate, and tours climb the spiral stair to the lantern room when conditions allow. Two of the former keepers' cottages are let as self-catering accommodation, often booked months in advance for summer. The headland and the cliff walk are open to the public in all seasons at no charge. The drive from Portsalon along the coast road is roughly twelve kilometres of single-lane road with passing places. There is one small café on site, and the wind matters more than the rain.