Aerials

The Fastnet Lighthouse at dawn on a blustery day.

The Fastnet is certainly Ireland’s finest lighthouse. Difficult to land on, and all but impossible to step from a boat for most of the year, this aerial view shows the typical angry sea that surrounds it.
Cape Clear Island is visible on the horizon, the closest point of land to the rock, often called the ‘Teardrop of Ireland’ as it was the last thing emigrants saw of their home country when sailing to America and Australia.

Skellig Michael (Sceilig Mhichíl) is one of the jewels of Ireland's landscape and heritage. Seen here from a helicopter, the Small Skellig and Lemon Rock are also visible. Puffin Island, Valentia and Portmagee are all visible in the distance.
A double-pyramid of rock soaring up from the surface of the Atlantic, it houses two lighthouses (one decommissioned), a 6th century monastery and a hermitage from the same era.

The Old Head of Kinsale is home to one of the world's most spectacular golf courses. Covering the end of the peninsula itself, bounded by cliffs on all sides with only a narrow isthmus connecting it to the rest of the peninsula, it's a strange mixture of wilderness and manicured beauty.
There has been a lighthouse at the Old Head since 1665. The original building is still present and was a cottage type with an open fire on its roof. The current 40-foot tower was built in 1853.
This photograph was made near sunset on a late summer's evening. The view is to the north with the golf course and lighthouse in the foreground and Kinsale town on the main coast to the right of frame. The low angle of the sun creates dramatic shadows which show the beautiful sculpting of the golf course very clearly.
Made with an ultra-high resolution digital sensor, in a large print golfers can be clearly seen on the course.

The Fastnet is the southernmost point of Ireland, and known as "Ireland's Teardrop" as it was often the last sight of home for emigrants heading to the New World.

Seen here in the aftermath of a storm, the trough of a swell passes by the rock, revealing details not normally seen.

Ardnakinna guards the western tip of Bere Island. Seen here from the air at sunrise.

A close in view of the lighthouse at the end of the Old Head of Kinsale on a beautiful Autumn evening. The golf course and clubhouse is visible in the background.

Dramatic fingers of rock reach out from Galley Head at sunrise.

A fiery sunrise over Loop Head in Clare. This point is the culmination of the line of cliffs along the clare coast that start with the Cliffs of Moher further north. The Shannon Estuary lies to the right of the frame, and the Atlantic Ocean to the left. The "Eire" sign near the tip of the peninsula was placed there during WWII to assist US pilots ferrying aircraft across the Atlantic with their navigation.

The classic aerial shot of the island showing the active lighthouse (bottom right) and the decommissioned one (top left), along with the hermitage (on the larger peak) and the monastery (on the lower peak).

The retired lighthouse on the island is dramatically situated on the cliffs.

The lantern of the Fastnet lighthouse glows as the first rays of sun strike it on a beautiful spring morning.

Ardnakinna is simultaneously one of the youngest and oldest lighthouses around the coast. The tower was originally constructed in 1850 as an unlit beacon, and was then converted to a full lighthouse by adding an ex-lightship lantern in 1965.
Seen here from the Irish Lights helicopter while returning from a visit to the Fastnet, the mouth of Bere Haven harbour is on the left and Castletownbere itself is in the background.