A milestone in the 750-year history of the Hook lighthouse in Co Wexford will be marked today when it is officially opened as a visitors' centre by the President, Mrs McAleese.
The £550,000 centre will be used to extend the tourism season on the Hook peninsula and will be linked to other visitor attractions in Wexford. Ms Derville Killian, the centre's manager, says the intention is to make tourism on the peninsula less weather dependent and offer visitors an alternative to purely outdoor activities.
The remote lighthouse has been guiding ships past the notoriously dangerous low-lying rock-bound promontory of Hook Head since the 13th century. The practice of shining a light there began eight centuries before that when the monks of St Dubhan established a fire beacon on the site of the current lighthouse tower.
Nobody is quite sure who first vowed to take Ireland by Hook or by Crooke, contrary to popular belief it probably wasn't Cromwell, but the phrase is a reference to the settlement of Crooke on the Waterford side of the Barrow estuary and Hook Head on the other.
Visitors to the lighthouse, which is open daily, are taken on a guided tour through a series of chambers as they climb to the top of the building for a panoramic view, at least on a clear day, of the peninsula and beyond. An audio-visual display tells the story of the monks who were the earliest keepers of the light, and the history of the lighthouse.
The centre opened last June and had attracted 23,000 visitors by the time the season closed at the end of October. Ms Killian says it has already had a positive impact on visitor numbers to the area. The dilemma facing the centre and other tourism interests on the Hook is how to maintain the sense of remoteness which is part of the area's character while advertising its charms to a wider audience. "Of course there has to be sustainable development," says Ms Killian. "It is not easy to say where you should strike the balance. One of our main aims is simply to extend the season and attract visitors earlier and later in the year than used to be the case."
The cost of developing the centre was largely met by the EU through the operational programme for tourism, administered by Bord Failte and the South East Regional Tourism Authority. Substantial funding was also provided by Wexford County Council, the Ireland Fund, the Wexford County Enterprise Board and private subscribers.
The lighthouse, which had a resident keeper until 1996 when it became fully automated, is thought to be the oldest operational lighthouse in Ireland or Britain, and one of the oldest in the world.
It is open daily from 9.30 a.m until 5.30 p.m. Admission is £3.50 for adults and £2 for children. Mrs McAleese will perform the opening ceremony today at 11.45 a.m.
