Knockadoon Signal Tower

In 1796 a French invasion of Ireland nearly came to pass. In December of that year 14,000 troops led by General Hoche and accompanied by Wolfe Tone eluded the Royal Navy and reached Bantry Bay. Unfortunately, a combination of very bad weather and poor leadership put paid to any landing and the fleet returned home. As Tone remarked at the time: "England has had its luckiest escape since the Armada".

The chance of another such invasion must have been remote - the French were preoccupied with their colonial wars  - but the authorities were nevertheless fearful of such a possibility. It was decided to build a series of towers around the west, south and east coasts to keep an eye on shipping and to enable the alarm to be raised should another flotilla of French warships be spotted. The towers were built within line of sight of each other so a signal indicating possible invasion could quickly reach Dublin.

The tower at Knockadoon dates from 1805. It is situated on public land at the end of a road that changes to a narrow pot-holed lane after you pass the last house. The lane is drivable but I would advise parking your car near that house and walking the rest of the way. Or, in order to avoid any inconvenience to the residents, you could park on the main road near where it comes to an end by the camp and walk back. It's not far.

There isn't any signpost to the tower. For its exact location check out the interactive map on www.osi.ie  - put these XY coordinates in the search field and you will see it: 608734/569653.  Or simply ask a local person.

I was there on a cold, bright December afternoon. As I was checking out the surrounding countryside a rainbow suddenly appeared to the east:

This breaks a compositional rule which says that you should not have your subject in the centre of the frame. I tried a version with the tower towards the right  - as per the Rule of Thirds - but it didn't work for me. (Canon 5D Mk11, Canon 24-105L, ISO 100, 1/200 sec @ f/10, unfiltered, RAW exposure processed in CS5).

For the following shot I used a B&W 10 stop ND filter on a Canon 17-40L. The camera was tripod mounted and the exposure was 60 seconds @ f/22. The B&W filter added a slight reddish hue which helped to accentuate the natural rich colour of late winter afternoon. The long exposure rendered some of the moving clouds as a blur which was what I wanted.