CHAPTER ONE · APPROACH

A film about the last men and women who turned the light.

Across the Atlantic-facing coast of Europe, fewer than forty civilian lighthouse keepers remain. We spent two winters with them, in their kitchens, on their walks, and on the towers, before the lights were automated, sold, or — in three cases — quietly extinguished forever.

RUNTIME97 min
SHOT INHebrides · Donegal · Aran · Lofoten
YEARS2023 → 2025
PREMIEREIDFA · 2025
CHAPTER TWO · 04:08–22:31

"There were three hundred of us in 1975. There are now thirty-eight."

When Liam Ó Sé took over the light at Inishtrahull in 1986, there were still seventy-one civilian lighthouse keepers on the Irish coast alone. By 2026, there are five.

Liam, now seventy-three, is one of them. He has lived on a one-mile island in the North Atlantic for thirty-nine years. He has not, in that time, owned a television. He has, in that time, lost his wife, raised three children to adulthood, and pulled forty-one bodies from the sea.

"I do not think of it as a job," he says, when we ask, on the third day. "I think of it as a kind of witness. I am here so that the light is here. The light is here so that the boats are safe. The boats are safe so that someone gets home."

Liam Ó SéInishtrahull, Donegal · age 73 · keeper since 1986
CHAPTER THREE · A KEEPER'S TESTIMONY
The hardest thing was not the storms. The hardest thing was the way the light kept turning, even on the night my wife died.
Magnus SolheimKeeper at Skomvær, Lofoten Islands · age 68 · in service since 1982
CHAPTER FOUR · 38:12–61:04

The eight keepers, and the towers that shaped them.

Eight portraits. Eight kitchens. Eight lights, of which only six are still being turned by hand at the moment of release.

IRELAND · ACTIVE
Liam Ó SéInishtrahull · 39 years
Liam Ó SéInishtrahull, Donegal

Has not owned a television since 1986. Pulled forty-one bodies from the sea. Will turn the light until they take the keys from him.

NORWAY · ACTIVE
Magnus SolheimSkomvær · 44 years
Magnus SolheimSkomvær, Lofoten Islands

Took the post on the day his second daughter was born in 1982. The light has been turning every night since the morning of his wife's funeral.

SCOTLAND · RETIRING '26
Eilidh MacCallumSula Sgeir · 22 years
Eilidh MacCallumSula Sgeir, Outer Hebrides

The first woman keeper on the western Hebridean rock lights. Will be the last. Retires this June, age 61.

IRELAND · DECOMMISSIONED '24
Pádraig ConneelyEeragh · 31 years
Pádraig ConneelyEeragh, Aran Islands

His light was extinguished in March 2024 after one hundred and twenty-three years in service. He still walks the path to the tower every morning.

CHAPTER FIVE · 67:11–84:05

Two centuries of standing watch.

1789

The first civilian keepers

Trinity House appoints the first non-naval keepers to twelve lights along the south coast of England. Twenty-two-year-old Alfred Wenmouth begins service at Lizard Point.

1859

The first woman keeper

Grace Darling's father appoints her assistant keeper at Longstone, Northumberland. She had, by then, already pulled nine survivors from the wreck of the SS Forfarshire.

1925

The peak — 2,460 keepers across Britain & Ireland

The largest civilian keeper service in the world, employing one in every 17,000 men of working age.

1998

The last British keeper retires

Trinity House automates North Foreland, the final manned light on the British coast. The Irish service follows in 1997. Norway's coast remains the last in Europe to keep manual posts.

2026

Thirty-eight remain

Across the Atlantic-facing coast of Europe — Ireland, Norway, Iceland, the Faroes, the western Hebrides, and a small list of contested rocks — fewer than forty civilian keepers are still on active duty. This film is a portrait of eight of them.

CHAPTER SIX · ON SCREEN

See it, in a cinema.

Limited theatrical run · spring & summer '26

FRI 24APR · '26

Premiere screening + Q&A with Aoife MaguireOPENING NIGHT · 90 MIN + 30 MIN Q&A

The Light HouseSmithfield, Dublin
€12
Book →
SAT 02MAY · '26

Curated screening + introduction by the producerWITH PRINTED PROGRAMME

Cinemateca PortuguesaLisbon, PT
€8
Book →
SUN 10MAY · '26

Screening + roundtable: the disappearance of solitary workWITH 4 GUESTS · IN ENGLISH

Bertha DocHouseBloomsbury, London
£14
Sold out
FRI 22MAY · '26

Outdoor coastal screening at the Skomvær siteWEATHER PERMITTING · DRESS WARM

Skomvær LighthouseLofoten, Norway
FREE
RSVP →
SAT 06JUN · '26

Screening + Q&A with director and Eilidh MacCallumRETIREMENT EDITION · 90 MIN + 60 MIN

An LanntairStornoway, Hebrides
£10
Book →
SUN 28JUN · '26

Closing-night screening & live score with the Donegal SessionsSOLD-OUT VENUE · LIVE BAND

Glenties Town HallDonegal, Ireland
€18
Book →
CHAPTER SEVEN · STAY IN TOUCH

One letter,
once a season.

News on screenings, the eventual streaming release, and the small accompanying book of portraits we are quietly making with Liam Ó Sé. Easy to leave.

— or watch the 2:14 trailer on Vimeo