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Showing posts from December, 2008

But manly strength has force to tame the storm*

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The current, holiday edition of The Economist has a good read on Fastnet Rock , the southernmost point in Ireland. Little more than a jagged hunk of slate protruding from the Atlantic, the Vikings called it Hvastann-ey ("Sharp-Toothed Island"), while its Irish name is An Charraig Aonair ("The Rock that Stands Alone"). Since 1854, it's been home to two successive lighthouses. The current one has been (sometimes just) standing against the fury of the ocean since 1903. The chief foreman of its construction, a stonemason named James Kavanagh, was singleminded in his devotion to his duty: He lived on the rock continuously for ten to 12 months of each year from August 1896 to June 1903, sleeping on a damp bed of rock close to the landing strip in quarters carved out of the rock face, known to this day as “Kavanagh’s hole”. The project ultimately cost him his life: Seven years of living in a hole in the rock, progress frustrated by maverick tides and his delayed shi