Porto Press Ltd Irish Lightkeepers Legacy: Life at the Edge

In June of 1837, as a teenaged Queen Victoria assumed the throne, an Irish Catholic peasant laboured from dawn to dusk farming land owned by the Marquess of Ely, a powerful peer of the Queen’s realm. Alexander, Alec, Power, a lowly estate worker, would live and die working these fields for his master, while trapped in a feudal system from which there was no exit. But Alec did escape. Through strength of character, tenacity, and an unlikely connection to a prominent Irish Protestant official, Alec gained admittance into the increasingly selective Irish Lightkeeping Service, becoming part of Britain’s national security posture, protecting maritime access for the nation over which the young Queen Victoria ruled. Alec and his wife, Maggie, were hardworking people who spent their lives in dangerous places on the coasts of Ireland, contending with nature at its wildest, raising their family while protecting mariners. Enduring incredibly rugged, dangerous conditions, surviving the Great Famine, this was truly life on the edge. Their lives were difficult, but their children grew to adulthood free of the discrimination that oppressed much of the Irish population in the era. After Alec died, his son, Thomas, assumed the role of head of family. Trained to be a lightkeeper, he was inexorably drawn to the most advanced technology and the most dynamic business of his times, the railway. Under tremendous pressure to find a means of support for his dependents, he spent years achieving success. He became part of the new Irish middle class, emerging just as the Irish people intensified their struggle to seek freedom and nationhood. The turmoil of this struggle threatened the stability that Thomas had achieved. This is the story of courageous people with strong family values who persisted, against all odds, in the years prior to the birth of the Irish nation. It is based on extensive genealogical and historical research. Autorid: Martha Power Baxter