- Contributed by听
- iemensa
- People in story:听
- Bruce Lawson
- Location of story:听
- Portstewart, Co Londonderry, N Ireland
- Background to story:听
- Civilian Force
- Article ID:听
- A8999590
- Contributed on:听
- 31 January 2006
The View from the tower site towards Donegal and the entrance to Lough Foyle
This story was posted by Bruce Lawson. The author understands the terms and conditions.
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Along the shore of North Antrim, between Portstewart and Portrush, there stood a brick-and-concrete watch-tower. It was 2 storeys high on a concrete base that stood on the black basalt bedrock of the shoreline. The room upstairs, with a flat concrete roof but otherwise open to the elements, was about 15 feet off the ground.
From this vantage-point, the occupants had a clear view of the North Atlantic, from the Royal Navy boom at the mouth of Lough Foyle to the islands off the west coast of Scotland. This was important territory in the battle of the Atlantic, because every convoy from the USA or Canada, bound for ports like Glasgow or Liverpool, had to pass within sight of this tower.
It鈥檚 said that during the First World War a German U-Boat shelled the town of Portballintrae, only a few miles east of Portrush. Naturally, precautions were taken to prepare for U-boat incursions into the waters off the North Antrim coast. But thankfully, these precautions were never put to the ultimate test.
One night in 1985 the television weatherman Michael Fish assured us there would be no hurricane. Unfortunately, he was wrong. The weather was so severe it toppled the tower, which is now just a heap of rubble.
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