Dún an Óir, Cape Clear Island, Cork

The Golden Fort. That's the translation of Dún an Óir, and on this particular evening it earned every letter of it. The ruin sits right on the turning tip of Cape Clear Island, exposed to whatever the Atlantic decides to throw at it. This evening, that was plenty.

I was set up on dark, lichen-covered rocks in the foreground, slippery and not exactly confidence-inspiring. But the composition was right, that jagged rock leading the eye out to the silhouetted tower on its headland, and I wasn't about to move. The sky went from grey to amber to deep purple in maybe ten minutes. The waves were piling into the base of the old fort with real force, and the light was dropping fast.

Here's the thing worth looking for. Just beneath the setting sun, right on the horizon, you can make out the Fastnet Rock lighthouse. Tiny in the frame, but once you see it you can't unsee it. Cape Clear is the closest inhabited land to the Fastnet, and from Dún an Óir you get this direct line of sight across open water to the rock. It adds something, I think, knowing it's there.

The window lasted a few minutes before the cloud closed over completely. That's how it goes out here. You don't get long, and when the light opens you work fast. Standing there afterwards with the waves still hammering away, I kept thinking about what it must have been like to actually live in that fort. Nothing between you and America. No shelter, no harbour nearby. Just rock and sea and wind. What a view they had!