SICK LIGHTKEEPER TAKEN OFF Howth, Co. Dublin. At 4.57 on the afternoon of the 5th January, 1962, the Commissioners of Irish Lights rang up the honorary secretary and asked if the life-boat would take a relief keeper to the Rockabill lighthouse and land a sick man from the lighthouse. The Commissioners' boat could not be used, and at 5.51 the life-boat R.P.L. embarked the keeper and made for the lighthouse with a dinghy in tow. There was a fresh south-westerly breeze and a rough sea.

The tide was flooding. The life-boat reached the lighthouse at 6.15, and three men put off in the dinghy to bring back the sick man and land the relief keeper. The strong tide and swell made this operation difficult, but the patient was safely ferried to the life-boat, which took him to Skerries, arriving at 8.15. The man was landed, and the life-boat then returned to her station, which she reached at 10.55..