TO PROTECT & SERVE
Sailing around the Fastnet Rock Lighthouse is something of a milestone for any sailor. Since 1925, the most southerly point of Ireland has been the focus for thousands of amateur and professional sailors competing in the biennial Fastnet Race.
It has also borne witness to the UK’s worst sailing disaster. Gerald Butler was one of the lighthouse keepers on duty at Fastnet on the night of the 1979 Force 10 storm, which claimed 21 lives.
As a third-generation lighthouse keeper, Butler has spent much of his life in isolation living on the storm-battered rocks of southern Ireland where he worked as an Assistant
