Purpose built as a lighthouse, it has served sailors and shipping for 800 years, It is thought to be one of the oldest operational lighthouses in the world. The phrase “by Hook or by Crooke” comes from the names of the villages of Hook Head and Crooke, in Waterford. Hook Head and Crooke are on opposite sides of the Waterford channel and Cromwell is reputed to have said that Waterford City would fall ‘by Hook or by Crooke’, that is, by a landing of his army at one of those two places during the siege of the town in 1649/5
