Tuskar Rock Lighthouse

Freestanding single-bay four-stage lighthouse, sanctioned 1811; built 1812-5; commissioned 1815, on a circular plan. "Improved", 1885. Electrified, 1938. Automated, 1993. Limewashed granite ashlar battered walls on battered base with cantilevered walkway supporting cast-iron railings centred "Harlequin" lantern on battered base. Square-headed window openings with limewashed cut-granite sills, and limewashed cut-granite lintels framing two-over-two timber sash windows. Set on outcrop.

A lighthouse erected to a design by George Halpin Senior (1776-1854), Inspector of Works and Lighthouses for the Ballast Board (appointed 1810), representing an important component of the early nineteenth-century built heritage of County Wexford with the architectural value of the composition, one where Trinity House insisted that the design be based on that by Daniel Asher Alexander (1768-1846) for South Stack Lighthouse (1809) near Holyhead (DIA), confirmed by such attributes as the "bell"-shaped silhouette; the construction in a silver-grey Dalkey granite demonstrating good quality workmanship, albeit one largely concealed behind a gleaming whitewashed finish; and the simple iron work encircling the lantern.