History of lighthouses with demands, and to the loss of a number of ships, most notably the Dutch merchant ship Vreede in 1800 with the loss of 380 lives. After the reforms of the Lighthouse Act 1836, owners still managed to collect large dues, of which the largest were for the Smalls Lighthouse which collected £23,000 in 1852 and Trinity House was forced to spend over £1m in buying back leases, including £444,000 for the Skerries Lighthouse. The modern era of lighthouses began at the turn of the 18th century, as lighthouse construction boomed in lockstep with burgeoning levels of transatlantic commerce. Advances
Eagle Island lighthouses 31 March 1988 the lighthouse was made automatic and there have been no lighthouse keepers resident on the island since. Eagle Island lighthouses The Eagle Island lighthouses were a pair of lighthouses on Eagle Island, County Mayo, Ireland. of which only one remains. Two lighthouses were commissioned in 1830 in response to requests from the Coastguards who were concerned at the sea conditions at Blackrock, further south. The Board inspector however, ruled in favour of locating the new lighthouses on Eagle Island, one in the east and the other in the west with between them at a cost of almost