Latest / Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood / 215. Eilean Mor - Disappearance of the Flannan Isles Lighthouse Keepers

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215. Eilean Mor - Disappearance of the Flannan Isles Lighthouse Keepers · Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood

• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Hello, delicious friends, and welcome to Who Did What Now,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: the history podcast that is not your history class, with me,
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: your host, Katie Charlewood, history harlot and reader of books.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: And if my voice sounds differently today, it's because I
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: am LASIK. I would like to blame my daughter who
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: rolled over and coughed directly in my face because she
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: went from, oh, don't hug me, I don't want you
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: near me, to there being a bad storm and her
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: sleeping in the bed next to me and then stuck
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: to my side like a barnacle on a ship, followed
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: by her rolling over and coughing directly in my face
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: and then laughing about it. And she's got such a
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: dirty laugh like Barbara Windsor. Look it up. She's That's
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: what she sounds like, but less cockney. So yeah, yeah,
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: I'm not great. I'm not ideal, some might say, because
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: I've had this cough now for several days. And I've got,
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: I had the sniffles, which then became the sneezes. And
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: I sneezed four times in a row this morning. I
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: didn't like it. The fourth time, I thought I was
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: over it. I thought it was like, oh, it's that
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: sneeze where you think you're going to sneeze and then
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: you don't. And then that happened and then I sneezed
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: and I was not. content, let me tell you. Now,
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: I had that going on and it's kind of led
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: to this. And then also we've had the storm. So,
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: you know, a little bit of power outages here, a
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: little bit of losing your fence there. I mean, I
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: don't need a fence on both sides of the house.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: It's fine. It's, it's fine. But yeah, it's, it's, uh,
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: it's not too bad though. Cause like other years have
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: been much worse and I had to explain the weather
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: warning system to a girl at work because she's originally
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: from Sweden and she's like, what is this weather warning
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: you're getting? We've never had any of those. And I'm like, no,
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: that's because your country is always prepared. Like they train
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: you how to like stop a car in an accident.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: We don't have that here. They're like, figure it out,
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: I guess. But here we have weather warnings. So there
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: was like a red marine warning, which is basically don't
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: go near the sea, right? So in inland, we had
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: was it an orange warning for wind and then a
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: yellow warning for rain so like wind's a bit much
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: the rain's the rain's doing some stuff right so yellow
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: warning is like ah now be careful lads and like
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: an orange warning is like don't be doing that unless
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: you absolutely have to and then a red weather warning
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: is stay inside do not leave your house basically If
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: you drive your car during a red weather warning and
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: something happens to it, like your insurance doesn't cover you.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: Like that's what this is like. So the red marine
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: warning is basically if you go to boat, like don't
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: go out. No, but that being said, one car did
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: get claimed by the sea. It gave it back, but
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: it did get claimed over in Rosnello Beach. But this
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: happens sometimes. People have been warned not to park their
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: cars on the beaches, especially when You know, storms are
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: coming and the tides are high and they're holding on.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: But they're basically going to have your car crushed. Like,
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: you're going to die if you're in your car and
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: it gets taken by the sea. Like, there's very little
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: respite to that. Very little option of safety, you know.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: So we only lost one car. Luckily, nobody was in it.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: And it looks like that episode of Father Ted where
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: they had the car and they tried... to tap out
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: the problem with a hammer. If you've seen the episode,
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: you'll know what I mean. I have, yeah, yeah. So
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: I have kids, as you know, as I've mentioned previously
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: in this very episode. And here's the thing. I made
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: the mistake of raising my kids to have A, empathy,
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: and B, to believe that I can solve problems, right?
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: I come home from work on Friday to see my
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: son with a big bag of blue. And no, it
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: wasn't meth. Now, luckily, I was a volunteer at the
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: Fancy Dress Disco for the National School the night before,
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: so I'll recognise it right away. Turns out this big, blue,
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: inflatable Among Us costume zip got torn out during the
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: Halloween costume parade. That was a lot of syllables, by
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: the way, guys, in a row. So, The boy who
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: had this costume was very upset. He was like in tears,
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: like so distraught that my son remembered that I've got
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: a make do and mend attitude, right? And not only
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: did he console his friend, but he told him that
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: I was going to find a way to fix it.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: So the zip has been pulled out, right? Pulled, basically.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: Like the teeth are fine, most of it's fine. I
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: just have to like restitch it in. Although I think
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: this is going to be a hand sewn situation. I
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: don't think this is going to be out with that.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: So I think I'm going to have to like make
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: an extra layer, like a strip to go in for
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: the attaching to ensure that stuff stays all the way through.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: But this is my current plan. It could end up
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: a disaster. I could end up saving the day. Let's
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: see what happens. And here's the thing. I don't like
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: to fail. So I'm not fond of it. It's not
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: a great look for me. Even when it comes to
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: an inflatable costume. But dear God, son, please stop offering
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: me up to do things. Stop offering me up. Like
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: I'm not, I'm not even that great at this stuff.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: I'm just determined more than anything else. Oh my goodness.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: I was informed actually that I never explained my being injured.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: So what happened is I tripped in front of the
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: chimney sweep and that is a person, like an actual
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: person whose job is sweeping chimneys. No, he's not a cockney. No,
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: he's not a little orphan that we shove up there. No,
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: I tripped and I hurt myself. I hurt my foot.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: I was going up the stairs because I don't think,
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: I feel like it's rude to be barefoot when people
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: are in your house. And so I put on these
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: Ugg slipper things that I got my mum. She asked for,
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: by the way. And these things are awful. They're like
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: platforms and they're chunky, but they're really flimsy. And I
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: can't explain to you. Like it was a bad idea.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: I should have worn them, but I put them on.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: And I tried to go up the stairs and I tripped.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: And then, but of course, over the next few weeks,
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: I trip again. Same foot, twice. And I've only made
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: it worse. And then one day, I was standing in
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: my kitchen, I turned around, I was doing like a spin,
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: because I was dancing to music from the late 90s,
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: early noughties, and my foot made what I can only
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: describe as a crunching noise. It was not a pleasant feeling.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: It was considerably unpleasant, some might say. So, I've been
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: resting it. I've been resting it a little, but if
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: it doesn't, I may... If it doesn't heal properly or
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: get better, this may be a situation where I have
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: to go to the ankle and foot doctor. But I
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: guess we'll find out. But anyway, I know what you're thinking.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: You're thinking, Katie, please. Quit your jabber jabber and fact me.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: And fact you I will. But first, we've got to
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: get our source on. Our sources are... The Lighthouse. The
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: Mystery of the Ellen Moore Lighthouse Keepers. by Keith McCluskey
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: Scottish Lighthouse by R. W. Munro The Mysterious Disappearance of
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: the Ellen Moore Lighthouse Keepers by Ben Johnson Transcripts of
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: documents related to the Flannan Isles mystery from the Museum
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: of Scottish Lighthouses including letters and telegrams Okay, so I
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: even managed to get like the commissioner's minutes. So NLC2
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: slash 1 slash 88 dash 89. I got it. Like,
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: here's the thing as well, right? I rarely listen to
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: podcasts on other topics. I try not to do it
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: until after I've recorded or sometimes I'll hear a story
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: when I'm listening to a podcast. I'll think, oh, I
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: should talk about this in the future. But I listened
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: in this one, and I listened to lots of spooky,
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: creepy podcasts, and I'm not going to recommend them because
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: I was like, pfft. And they all tend to tell
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: the same tale. And that is the tale I'm going
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: to be telling you. Are you sitting comfortably? Good. Then
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: let's begin. I am going to start with the story
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: that you may have already heard. The story that gets
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: whispered around a campfire. The mystery of the Flannan Isles
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: lighthouse keepers. So I'm gonna I do this every now
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: and again, so I'm gonna tell you the story that
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: you've probably heard or the one that's most common, the
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: one that spreads and then I'm gonna slip back into
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: some context, fill out a wee bit and then go
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: hard on facts. Are we ready? Oh, I may also
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: talk about a conspiracy or two, but let's not jump ahead.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: For now it is the turn of the century. The
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: 20th century, to be precise, and the light that should
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: be beaming from the 75-foot structure on the Isle of
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: Ellenmore isn't. And it has not been for several days now.
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: A relief team has been sent out across the harsh
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: Scottish waters, and when they arrive, the island is eerily quiet.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: With a man always on watch, the lighthouse keepers should
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: have definitely been there to welcome them, but they were
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: suspiciously absent. The provisions boxes that should have been on
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: the landing stage, ready to be restocked, were also nowhere
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: to be seen. Even the flagpole was bare. It was
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: clear to the crew of the Hesperus, the lighthouse tender,
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: that something was amiss. The captain blew the ship's whistle
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: in a vain attempt to alert the men that they
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: had arrived. Alas, not one of the keepers showed themselves,
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: and so the relief keeper, Joseph Moore, made his way
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: to shore. he was sent alone in a boat to
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: investigate why none of the men, James Duckett, Thomas Marshall
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: or Donald MacArthur, had come to meet them. As he
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: made his way towards the lighthouse, he noticed that both
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: the entrance gate and the main door were closed. When
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: he entered the building, still he found no hide nor
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: hair of the men, but in their place, he did
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: find disarray. The clock was unwound, unused for some time,
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: no hint of warmth emitted from the fireplace. Mer surmised
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: that it had not been lit for several days, and
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: the clocks had certainly not been in use. More disturbingly,
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: chairs were overturned, dinners lay half-eaten on plates, Cuddlery just
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: strewn on the table, as if the men rushed out
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: without a moment's thought. Stranger still, the beds of all
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: three men were unmade. And now Joseph Muir was worried.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: Three men wouldn't just leave the lighthouse unattended. Not all
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: of them. These were seasoned men, men whose duty it
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: was to keep the lighthouse running and ensure that no
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: ships crashed upon the rocks. These were treacherous waters. Without
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: the light emitting from the Ellenmore Lighthouse, those who sailed past,
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: they could be headed straight for tragedy. So where were they?
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: Other than some ruins and old stone structures, there was
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: nowhere to be on that island. And those ruins, they
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: weren't habitable. Even the old stone church had lost its
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: roof long before the lighthouse had been beginning construction. And
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: so Joseph, he returns to the Hesperus and gets some
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: men to help him search the island just in case. Still,
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: in the lighthouse, he found a set of oil skins,
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: out of where the men would have used to face
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: the harsh December weather. No sane man would have left
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: the lighthouse without them. The men also uncover a log,
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: or a diary, by Thomas Marshall, and the entries are
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: benign enough to begin with, until it creeps on closer
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: to December. The entries become odd. Some are cryptic, others
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: laden with melancholy. There were entries very unprofessional about the
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: other keepers. As the year was beginning to close in,
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: James Ducat had He'd become insular. A quiet had come
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: over him. He no longer spent time out with work
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: duties with the other men. In Douglas MacArthur, he had
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: taken to bouts of sobbing. Three men, isolated. The majority
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: of the day shrouded in darkness. And they were responsible for...
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: for the only light as far as the eye could see.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: Was the island getting to them? Was it affecting their minds?
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: Or was something much darker at play? On the 12th
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: of December, Marshall wrote that there were severe winds the
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: likes of which he had never seen before in 20 years.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: And on the 13th, he noted that the storm was
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: still raging and the men, fearing for their fate, had
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: fallen to their knees in prayer. Again, seasoned men. The
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: final log entry had been made on the 15th of December, stating,
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: Storm ended, sea calm, God is over all. And that's
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: all she wrote. The crew of the Hairsporers continued to
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: search the island. They came upon the damage of the
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: west landing. Now, the east? Nothing. Everything was almost as
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: it should have been. But the west? Iron railings had
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: been bent over. The iron railway had been pulled out
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: of the concrete. Rocks weighing a tonne or more had
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: been moved, and a box that had been kept 108
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: feet above sea level was broken, its contents everywhere. And
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: the log said that these men had survived the storm,
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: the storm that had caused this. A storm that had
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: crushed iron and ripped train tracks from the ground. And
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: they had survived. A storm that forced three well-worked men,
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: men who had worked in rugged conditions and served for years,
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: in stormy weather and long winters. The storm had passed
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: and then the men had vanished without a trace. What
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: could have caused the men to panic? What could have
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: caused them to break down and pray, expecting that their
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: lives would soon be over and they would be meeting
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: their maker What could have done that to these men?
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: And what could have taken them all from that lonely,
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: isolated island? And why did nobody notice until it was
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: too late? Now that you've heard the spooky story, the mystery,
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: of Ellen Moore, let's talk about the real story without
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: the bells and the whistles. So I knew that I
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: wanted to do a month specifically on missing, disappeared and
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: lost and I was thinking, oh October, it'll be spooky,
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: it'll be creepy and I scoured for so long trying
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: to find an event that would be creepy enough and
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: spooky enough for Halloween but I'm afraid that I don't
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: think I've actually found anything creepy or mysterious enough. Sidebar,
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: I was also really good at problem solving as a kid, right?
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: It was an actual subject, like it was a separate
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: subject when I was in primary school. We had like
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: a dedicated time for problem solving. It is no wonder
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: that I ended up here. It's no wonder that I
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: ended up focusing on misinformation and propaganda, like sensationalism, all
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: that jazz. So yeah, that being said, like Benoit Blanc,
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: I too suck at Cluedo. I love Cluedo. I'm not
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: very good at it. Or Clue to my American listeners.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: Love the game. Terrible at it. You will probably kick
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: my ass at it if we play. but I will
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: still want to play. So I have a habit of
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: ruining things. Victorian ghosts, the myth of Pope John, and
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: now the Flannan Isles mystery, because if you pay attention
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: to the facts and not the whispers on a game
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: of telephone, then it's less creepy and more tragic. And
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: the one thing I noticed about this month and the
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: research pertaining to it is that Everything is much less
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: mysterious when you just look at it, right? And you
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: look at the actual facts that are out there and
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: not somebody's retelling of a retelling of a retelling, which
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: is ironic because I'm retelling stuff to you from other
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: people's information because that's a lot of the time what
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: history content is. But here we go. Let's get into
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: this and let us slip into some context. So the
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: Flannan Isles are a small group of islands in the
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: Outer Hebrides of Scotland, also known as the Seven Hunters
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: or even the Seven Holy Islands, right? These are split
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: into like three groups. So to the northeast, we have
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: the two main islands, Ellinmore and Ellintyke. To the south,
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: we have Surrey and Skirtoman. And to the west, we
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: have Ilanagova, Rorheim and Porona Clich. You know, that may
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: not be a ch sound. I automatically assume that a
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: T at the end is a ch sound because Gaelic,
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: but this is Gaelic and I realise I don't speak Gaelic.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: Scottish Gaelic, I don't speak. Scots, I speak, right? It
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: is an indigenous language, but it's not the same one. So, yeah.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: So anyway, the highest point is 289 feet above sea level,
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: and that is on Illinmore, which is the isle that
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: we will be focusing on. Illinmore, a big island. It was,
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: I'm going to say sort of inhabited at one point.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: There was a small church there. Now, it was in
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: ruins by the time the lighthouse had begun construction in 1899.
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: And it was so small that the lighthouse keepers would
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: refer to it as the dog kennel. It's basically a
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: good size for like the tiny house craze that was
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: happening for a while. Like I have a buyer out
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: the back of my mum's house that I think would
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: probably be the same size. So there was wildlife on
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: the island and like shepherds would bring their sheep to
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: graze on it because like fresh grass, yummy, yummy. But
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: they wouldn't stay overnight because... They feared the spirits of
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: the island. So the chapel itself was dedicated to Saint Flannan,
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: and this may shock you, but there was more than
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: one of them. What? Saints having the same name? What
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: are they? The King of England? That's a really bad joke.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: That's a terrible joke. If you laughed at it, shame
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: on you. Shame. The most likely culprit was an abbot
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: from the 7th century who came from Killaloo, County Clare
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: in Ireland. The same place as Brianborough. I don't even
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: know if Brianborough came from Killaloo. But Brianborough had a...
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: He had a settlement there. Oh, I should know the
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: name of this because they named a hotel after it
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: and I used to work in the hotel because I
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: lived in Killaloo for a little while. It's always funny
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: when I see places that I used to live and
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: I'm like, but why? There's nothing there. Killaloe, it's a lie.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: Killaloe's really nice. It's on the Shannon and it's on
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: the border between Ballina and Tipperary. So if you're there,
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: it's not a long, long way to Tipperary. It's just,
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: it's just across the bridge, man. It's just there. And
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: there used to be a crack in me restaurant there
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: called the Cherry Tree. And the guy who owned it
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: used to train under Gordon Ramsay. That is a big sidebar.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: But yeah, Killaloe County Clare. In Ireland. Now, listen. Okay.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: What's an Irish saint doing on a Scottish rock? Irish
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: monks had this big habit of living out in Scottish
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: islands during the early Middle Ages. You would be surprised
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: how often it comes up, right? They're there. They've got
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: a manuscript. Sometimes they've copied it. And it's like, uh-uh-uh. Uh-uh-uh-uh.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: Copyright law going back to the 5th century or something.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: Now this island, like others in the Flannan Isles, has
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: a coastline with these narrow gullies which are called geos, right?
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: And so they're basically these deep ditches or ravines all
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: on the coastline. Now some would lead to caves and
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: others would just lead to death. Now When powerful waves
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: would come in, like sometimes, you know, because physics, they
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: would shoot up through the gullies with a mighty force,
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: kind of like a geyser, like it would just... Now,
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: this is when there was like harsh weather and storms,
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: which honestly happened in quite a lot of here because
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: those seas, right, at the Atlantic and the North Sea,
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: were they to meet It's not great, guys. It's not super. Like,
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of problems happening. Like, there's very little travel,
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: very little transport happening during this, right? Certain periods, you
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: just don't want to be on that sea, effectively. Like,
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: I think the United Kingdom's King James cancelled trips to
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: Norway specifically because of how bad the sea was Because
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: if you weren't getting out by a certain point, the
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: sea was going to take you, right? It's... But yeah,
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: for most of its existence, this island is uninhabited, right?
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: There is a church there and it's... I think it's
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: just because it was the furthest out. They're like, that'll do.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: But yeah, industrialisation was well underway by the 1800s. And
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: between travel and trade, many vessels were sailing past the
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: Outer Hebrides, some to Leith, others to Scandinavia, so on
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: and so forth. The cold Atlantic Ocean and the North
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: Sea are harsh and dangerous waters, especially over the winter months.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: And to prevent vessels from running aground on the many isles,
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: a lighthouse was commissioned. David Alan Stevenson, he was an
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: engineer and he designed the lighthouse for the NLB, the
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: Northern Lighthouse Board. Now the NLB is the General Lighthouse
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: Authority for Scotland and the Isle of Man to this day. Okay,
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: I'm going to have to cliff notes this. Okay. The
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: NLB was formed as the Commissioners of Northern Lighthouses as
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: a result of the Erection of Lighthouses Act of 1786. Yes,
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: We have gone back to the Georgians, okay? It would
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: later become the NLB in 1867. Anywho, at this point,
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: their favourite designer, or like when it was invented, its
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: favourite designer was Robert Stevenson, whose sons would also design lighthouses,
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: and whose grandson would also design lighthouses. His sons, David,
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: Alan and David. Thomas Stevenson, would become engineers and lighthouse designers.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: And you might be thinking, is this nepotism? And the
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: thing is, kinda. It's one of those things where, like
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: back in the day, if you learned a skill from
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: an uncle or a parent or whatever, then a lot
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: of the time it was the family business and you
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: just learned that skill, right? So it's kinda nepotism, but
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: it's more kind of apprenticeship, you know. It would be
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: David's son, David Alan Stevenson, who designed the lighthouse at Ellenmore.
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: So here's the reason I even brought up the Stevenson family. tree.
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: Do you know how many accounts I listened to about
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: how David Alan Stevenson was the son of Robert Louis
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: Stevenson author of yes Treasure Island and Dr Jekyll and
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: Mr Hyde Yes, it is pronounced Jekyll. Jekyll like treacle,
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: not Jekyll like heckle, right? That's not how it's actually pronounced.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: And if you say it like Jekyll, you're wrong. So yeah,
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: I saw this and was like, this can't be correct.
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: This feels like time-wise wrong to me. And shockingly, I
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: was correct because David Allen was born in 1854 and
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: Robert Louis was was born in 1853. Now, I'm no
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: mathematical expert, but I do not think Robert Louis Stevenson
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: was producing sons at four years old. Nor was he
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: producing children at any point in his life, to my knowledge. Now,
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: who knows? Maybe genealogy will tell me otherwise, but I
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: say that as if I think I'm going to be
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: related to Robert Louis Stevenson. No, but David Allen and
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: Robert Louis Stevenson were, however, cousins, right? And Robert Louis
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: Stevenson's like the black sheep of the family because he
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: didn't go into the lighthouse business. Instead, he's like, I
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: want to write about pirates and other things. But also,
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: I love Treasure Island. I love a Muppet Treasure Island. Katie,
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: is there ever a way that you won't find a
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: way to mention the Muppets in an episode? I will.
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: And I will make it make sense. So I'm so
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: proud of myself for that. I didn't even mean to
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: do that. But I was like, you know what? I
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: have a moment to mention the Muppets right now. But
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: this lighthouse on Ellen Moore, it was finished and lit
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: on the 7th of December 1899. But there were challenges
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: to construction. See, The first of which was there not
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: being a harbour or a natural landing area. See, if
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: you can't park your boat, you know, I'm going to
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: fix that because someone's going to complain, you don't park boats.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: If you can't dock your boat, it's going to make
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: it tougher to get stuff where it needs to go. Effectively,
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: construction supplies would have to be hauled up the cliff
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: face directly from supply boats. Not ideal. So they said
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: fuck this we're a game of soldiers and built a
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: wee railway. There were 160 steps hand cut into the
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: rocky cliff face to make a staircase. Then they built
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: a cable hauled railway up the steep rocky steps. Then
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: bam they could transport supplies. Once the structure was finished
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: which was delayed by nearly two full years because weather
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: waits for no man, right? Between the horrific winds and
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: the churning seas, getting labour and materials to the island
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: sometimes had to wait for the weather to ease off.
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: But then, fun fact, once the structure was completed, the
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: only way to actually reach it was up that steep
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: stone staircase. Now, I'm not saying this island is basically
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: a big rock surrounded by steep cliffs and very perilous,
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: except I kind of am. It does have grass. It's
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: got turf. It's got turf. Now, they did need, however,
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: the best men for the job. You know what, sidebar,
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: I'm sidebarring again. You know what's really annoying? Trying to
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: find footage and photos of the island that aren't a
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: bunch of spooky, creamy bullshit pieces of bollocks. Did I
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: say creamy? Listen, creepy, creepy. It's just, do not get
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: me started on also all of the AI slop, right?
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: All I wanted to find was like actual photos of
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: the island, like photos that would have been taken At
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: any point over the last century, at this point, I
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: would have taken from when it was automated. But it's
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: always these, like, fake, like, photos and fake derogotypes and
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: all this stuff. And it's just not so bad. Anyway,
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: the men chosen to be stationed at the Ellen Morlatt
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: house were the cream of the crop. four men were
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: hand-picked for the job. The principal keeper, James Duca, the
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: first assistant keeper, William Ross, second assistant keeper, Thomas Marshall,
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: and third assistant keeper, Joseph Moore. There would typically be
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: keepers on an island rotation and a designated shore keeper. Like,
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: that's how it worked most of the time. Now there
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: is a shore station on Brisket on the Isle of Lewis,
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: but the keeper's families would stay there. And instead of
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: a designated shorekeeper, the position on land rotated between the
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: entire crew. And the rotation system set up by the
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: NLB was very strict and it applied to all ranks.
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: And so all four of the men took turns so
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: that everyone got regular relief from the isolation of Ellen Moore.
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: There would be three keepers on the isle at any
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: one time, and one on relief at shore. James Duckett
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: had to be convinced to take the post for principal keeper.
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: He was not super stoked at the offer. I realise
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: that I've been calling him Ducat for the first, like,
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: bit of this, but it's Duckett. It's Duckett, and I
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: know it's Duckett, but for some reason my brain went, no, no,
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: it's clearly fancier than you think it is. No, no. No,
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: it's Duckett, like Bucket, right? So James Duckett was promoted
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: from assistant keeper to principal keeper in April 1896 and
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: was chosen as principal keeper for the Flannan Isles Lighthouse
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: while it was still under construction. He must have been good.
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: He was the most senior of the crew with 22
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: years with the NLB under his belt. And at 43
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: years old, he thought the post on Ellen Moore was
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: a bit too dangerous, but he had a wife and
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: four children relying on him. He had married his wife,
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: Mary Greeson, on the 9th of June 1882 at Hutton
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: Place in Edinburgh. Mary's family had been lighthouse keepers, including
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: her father John and her uncle Robert. In fact, that's
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: how she and James met. She had been residing with
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: her uncle in Inchkeith Lighthouse when she met James. The
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: couple had four children together, Louisa, Robert, Annabella and Arthur,
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: and at the time of his disappearance they ranged between
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: the ages of six and sixteen. Louisa was sixteen and
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: Arthur was six. He had served at many lighthouses, including Montresnes, Inchkeith,
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: Rins of Islay, Langriss and Loch Ryan, before finally going
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: to the Flannan Isles. Thomas Marshall was the youngest crew
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: member at Flannan Isles. At 28, he was single, didn't
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: have children, and had previously worked as a seaman and
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: as an occasional lighthouse keeper on the Isle of Craig.
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: He entered the Commissioner's Service in April 1896 and was
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: posted to Flannan Isles. And the only black mark on
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: his record was he had once been fined five shillings
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: for losing his equipment in a storm. William Ross had
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: worked his way up the ladder at the NLB, including
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: Buchan Ness, Sound of Mull, and unfortunately, when he was
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: at Flannan Isles... He became ill during his first year.
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: To be put on medical leave was a big deal
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: and would have to have been serious enough to have
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: him off at all. Like, there are so many hoops
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: to jump through and it's the turn of the century. Like,
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: mandatory sick days are not a thing. In order for
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: this man to be removed, something must have happened. I mean,
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: it's a gruelling place to work. It's heavy work and
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: you're so isolated. But he gets sent home. He's on
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: medical leave and would be replaced by an occasional keeper,
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: Donald MacArthur, who we will get to in a moment.
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: Joseph Moore was in his mid-thirties and he was married
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: with at least one son, James. He had previously worked
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: as the assistant lightkeeper at St Ab's Head Lighthouse in Berkshire.
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: It's interesting to try and dig through census records and
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: try and find information, but the most I found was
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: in James Duckett. And the rest was so much harder
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: to get info on. I mean, these are working class
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: people from the past, so... Like, it's always going to
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: be an uphill struggle to find that info, but if
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: this hadn't happened, if this disappearance hadn't occurred, would we
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: even have had a consideration about who they were? Donald
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: MacArthur was a 40-year-old father of two. He was an
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: experienced mariner and was local to Lewis. He was an
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: occasional keeper and a temporary replacement for Ross. He was
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: known to be a bit of a brawler. Like, he
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: might not have started the fight, but he was definitely
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: going to finish it. And he had certainly got into
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: a punch-up or two in his time. Joseph Moore had
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: arrived on the island, Boxing Day, 1900, ready to relieve
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: one of the men, and instead stumbled into the mystery.
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: It was over ten days before that fateful discovery that
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: the first signs of something being amiss was noticed. The
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: transatlantic steamship Arctur was travelling from Philadelphia to Leith and
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: the crew noticed that the lighthouse was not lit on
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: the night of the 15th of December 1900. When the
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: ship docked in Leith on the 18th, This info was
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: passed on to the Northern Lighthouse Board. The relief vessel, Hesperus,
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: was due to sail out on the 20th with supplies
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: and with Joseph Moore. But thanks to the tempestuous sea,
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: it was delayed and it couldn't make it out until
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: the 26th and arrived around noon. Now you may be
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: thinking to yourself, Katie, you've already told us this bit. Listen, listen,
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: there's more to this than a ghost story, okay? An
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: omission here, an addition there, you know, but we're not
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: doing that and I'm just, you know, listen, I'm here
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: to ruin your day, okay? That's how this works. They
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: arrive offshore and the boxes of provisions, they aren't ready
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: to be resupplied. The men aren't there to greet them
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: and Not even the one who should be getting ready
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: to get off the island for two weeks. Captain Jim
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: Harvey tried to reach the men by blowing the ship's
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: whistle and when that didn't work, fired off a flare.
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: But nothing. They even noticed that no flag had been
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: on the flagpole to acknowledge their arrival as they launched
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: a rowboat so that Joseph Moore could row to shore.
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: He's been working with these men for a year. He
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: knew them. They were his colleagues and so he was
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: the one who was sent across. He trudged up the
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: 160 hand-cut steps into the cliff face with still no
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: sight of the men. The main entrance door and the
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: gate to the compound were closed. The door, however, was unlocked.
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: In the entrance hall, he noticed there was only one
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: oilskin coat there. Two were missing, along with two sets
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: of boots. Only MacArthur's remained. He ventured into the living area.
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: The table was clear, neat and tidy. All the cutlery
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: and pots and pans clean and put away. The beds
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: were unmade, which was odd. And the clocks had all stopped.
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: They had not been wound for several days. See, before
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: we had batteries and such, clocks would have to be
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: wound up to work. And this would either be with
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: a knob or a special key that turned the cogs.
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: And this had not been done. to any clock in
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: the building. He made his way towards, or should I
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: say upwards, towards the lamp in the light room. The
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: lamp itself had been cleaned. It had been crimped and
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: seemed ready to be prepared to be lit at sunset,
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: as usual, but it clearly had not been. And so Joseph,
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: he checked the keeper's log, it had a final entry
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: on the 13th of December. And this was just logs
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: of routine information and it wasn't just, I mean, there
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: was info on slates as well as the log, right,
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: from the 14th and 15th. And this was to be
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: transferred to the official log later. And this was a
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: very typical thing for them to do. All the official
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: readings would be put into the log and then Other
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: info would be put on slates and would then be
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: transferred into the log. The slates included the time the
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: light had been extinguished and the 9am entries on the
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: thermometer readings and the barometer readings. But again, this was
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: all on the 15th. And Muir thought that whatever happened
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: would have had to have happened in the afternoon or
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: possibly even after dinner. Moore had headed back to the
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: Hesperus and told the captain of the empty lighthouse. But
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: that lamp needed to be lit, and so along with
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: three volunteers from Harvey's crew, Joseph Moore returned to the lighthouse,
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: along with the boy master, Alan MacDonald, and seamen Lamont
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: and Campbell. The men searched the island, and although the
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: east landing seemed fine, the west landing was not. The
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: metal railings had been crushed as though they were made
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: of tin. The railway line had been wrenched out of
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: its cement foundation. Turf had been ripped out of the
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: cliff edge at 200 feet above sea level. And a
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: rock that weighed more than a tonne had been displaced.
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: And of course a box that stored crane handles, rope, etc.,
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: It had smashed open with its contents strewn along the cliffs.
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: And this is 108 feet above sea level. The crane, however,
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: was intact. The men were shocked. Joseph Muir had been
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: on the island on the 7th of December and it
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: had not looked like this. And there hadn't been any
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: reported storms since he'd been ashore. There was no storms,
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: there was no Bad weather, nothing, some fog, but there
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: was nothing huge, nothing major, nothing reported. Meanwhile, after dropping
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: the men off on the island, the Hesperus sailed to
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: the nearest telegraph station and contacted the NLB. Joseph Moore
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: also wrote to the NLB. He wrote that with the
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: way everything was and, you know, the oil scans and
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: such that Duckett and Marshall had their gear and for
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: whatever reason MacArthur must have ran outside in only his
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: shirt sleeves. Which, to run outside, to leave the lighthouse unattended,
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: there must always be one person manning the lighthouse. That
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: is the NLB regulations and you're in violation of that.
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: And that is a big deal. This information together, when
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: it came from, finally the letter came from Muir, an
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: official inquiry began. And Superintendent Robert Muirhead conducted a two-week investigation.
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: He had chosen to do it because he had handpicked
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: all the men personally. And he had seen them before
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: the tragedy. His official opinion was that a rogue wave
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: knocked the men into the sea. Or possibly, a very
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: strong wind. Now the reason the wind comes into this
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: story at all is because the idea of a rogue
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: wave at the time was... Preposterous idea. But with the
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: damage to the bait box and the turf and the
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: cliff and all the other damage, it seemed the most likely,
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: like a light was extinguished from a great height. And
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: this all played into the idea of this rogue wave.
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: After examining the ropes, the railings, etc, he believed that
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: the most likely situation was that on the afternoon of
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: the 15th of December, the men headed to the west
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: landing to secure the box with all the stuff in it.
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: I'm paraphrasing. And as they're securing it, this unexpectedly large
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: wave came and swept them away like they were absolutely
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: blindsided by this wave. But that still raises the question
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: of why one set of gear was still in the lighthouse.
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: Muirhead He travels to see Roderick McKenzie. He's a gamey
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: ball down a gallon head and initially, like, he tries
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: to meet him but he's not there. And his teenage
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: sons are there, who are like 16 and 18, who
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: had taken over the nightly watch with a high-powered telescope.
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: They had recorded that the light was seen on the
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: 7th but went dark on the 12th and then wasn't
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: seen again until the 26th. when Muir was on the island. Eventually,
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: Muirhead gets to Mackenzie, who's like, listen, it's not unusual
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: for them to not be able to see light on
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: the island because of weather and fog. And even if
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: there was some kind of system where they had like
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: a daily check and a daily acknowledgement, if something did
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: go wrong, the assumption would be that something's wrong with
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: the equipment. Not necessarily three men have disappeared, you know.
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: And Muirhead, he had seen them on the 7th. He
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: had shaken their hands. He had spoken to them and
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: it was the anniversary of their first year there. He
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: was one of the last people to see them, along
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: with Joseph. The likeliest story we have is that two
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: of the men were out by the west landing and
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: from the lighthouse MacArthur saw something. A wave or whatever.
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: Maybe he saw the men fall. Whatever he saw, he
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: ran out without his boots or his coat to help them.
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: And then, in whatever they were doing, they were taken
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: by the sea. But It is Halloween and what would
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: I do if I didn't indulge you just like a
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: little wee bit so let's slip into some theories. And
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: of course some explanations. The 1912 poem Flan and Isle
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: by Wilfred Wilson Gibson is a chilling tale and it's
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: also where the idea of the abandoned meal and overturned
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: chair come from. And the log entries with all of
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: the unprofessional stuff in them. Well, as it turns out,
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: this was the invention of a mystery author in 1929. Shock, horror. Yes,
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: all the stuff about the crying. That's right, these well... Again,
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: seasoned is the best thing I've got. Like, they're used
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: to this. Like, they're pecked for this because it's so
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: tough and because of who they are. Right? So the
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: idea that they're, like, you know bucking and down on
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: their knees and praying you know during a storm when
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: they know the safest place for them to be is
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: in that lighthouse right and for them to cry and
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: no no it's all it's all just to add to
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: the mystery but of course theory time and this is
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: just for fun so do not at me okay not
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: for the theories it's not to do me MacArthur was
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: a volatile man And in a psychotic break from the
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: isolation of the island and the rugged, brutal work, it
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: caused him to run out of the lighthouse in only
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: his shirt sleeves and have an altercation with the other men,
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: resulting in them all falling into the sea. Another popular
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: theory is the murder-suicide, where one of the keepers snapped
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: the And so he murdered the other two colleagues, disposed
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: of their bodies, and then ended their own life, throwing
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: himself into the ocean. Then, of course, there's the secret pact.
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: The idea that the men escaped their isolated posting and
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: secretly left on a secret boat to go and start
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: a new life somewhere Like this wonderful, magical polycule between
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: the three of them. Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe they sailed
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: off into the sunset. Maybe they all shaved off their
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: beards and started a new life in Samoa. If you're
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: thinking that's a very specific place to choose, that's where
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: Robert Louis Stevenson ended up. Like, that's where he died. Samoa.
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: Another popular theory is pirates. Because, of course, you're going
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: to kidnap three grown men from a hazardous island off
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: the coast of Scotland. Pirates! The men were a victim
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: to the phantom of the seven hunters. The spirits on
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: the islands were so affronted by the construction of the
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: lighthouse that they lured the keepers to their deaths. just
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: over a year after it started. Sirens. We didn't consider sirens.
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: Maybe there was like a big sexy winter manatee being like,
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: I've got a rolling slice for you, pal. Oh, come
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: and get a tatty scone. I've got some, I remember
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: it wasn't invented yet. I remember it wasn't invented until 1908.
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: It's fine. It's magic, I am true. It existed before
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: it existed because they're magic sexy winter manatees. A giant seabird,
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: like a seagull on steroids, flew over the island and
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: carried the men away. Three grown men, one giant bird. Albatross.
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: Get your albatross. It's a very ambitious bird. Perhaps a
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: sea serpent or the kraken emerged from the Atlantic and
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: dragged the men to their watery graves. Or did the
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: keepers witness a secret naval operation and so had to
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: be removed from the island before they could share the secrets?
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: Or totally spies, right? Agents from another country that was
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: fighting with Scotland in 1900 specifically. Or maybe the British Empire.
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: Or perhaps they thought they had a Swedish island. Whom's
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: to know? But they abducted the men for spy reasons.
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: Or was it a religious cult? There were rumours of
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: occult happenings across the Flannan Isles, including human sacrifice. They
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: were singing at the top of their lungs, summer is a-coming.
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: And so the men were taken as sacrifices to the gods,
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: not the bees. How many pop culture references can I
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: get in the end of this? Somebody's going to be like,
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: I got that reference, Katie. Thank you. So, Ellen Moore
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: is also known as the Island of the Pygmies or
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: the Island of Little Men. See, many small bones were
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: found buried on the island. And so it was believed
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: that when they were dug up, they would become little men.
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: And these little men waited to strike down so they
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: could remove the interlopers from their island. Maybe, just maybe,
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: it was a ghost ship sailed past the island and
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: took the men to join its ghostly crew. Did it
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: take them to Davy Jones' locker? Hymns to say. Or
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: even Aliens! Maybe it was aliens. I mean, at this point, aliens, right?
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: Are we not? I don't have any alien theories. No
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: one has ever brought up an alien theory. I'm just
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: throwing it out there at this point because why not?
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: Why not? Then, of course, we have the less exciting
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: and more depressing option of or perhaps the least exciting
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: and most depressing option is All three men having a
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: shared psychosis, succumbing to psychological stress or perhaps being impaired
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: by carbon monoxide poisoning brought on by a faulty heating
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: system in the lighthouse. Or maybe it was aliens. Listen.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: At the end of the day, what gets lost in
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: all of these, like, creepy mysteries, spooky theories... Oh, the
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: Geogully shot up water and shot them out to sea
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: or whatever. With all of these, what gets lost is
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: the fact that three men lost their lives. Donald MacArthur
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: and James Duckett left behind widows and children. And the
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: youngest keeper, Thomas Marshall, left behind a father, a brother
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: and a sister. Because at the end of the day,
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: it's not just the dead who lose a life. Their
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: families lost it too. And of course there'd be some compensation,
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: but the way red tape and bureaucracy works, it would
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: have been delayed. They did get it eventually, because that's
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: one of the reasons why we know this information, is
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: because the paperwork is there. But of course, the lighthouse
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: needs to be lit. And it was manned by Joseph Moore,
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: Donald Jack and John Milne until permanent keepers could be assigned.
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: And then, the three men on one man off system
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: of rotation continued up until 1971 when the lighthouse finally
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: became automated, preventing the need for permanent residents upon the isle.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: A helipad was constructed, so People wouldn't have to brave
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: the waters and make it easier for maintenance. After the
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: men disappeared from the island, it was tainted for years
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: to come. Locals had stories, whispers, fears. Because to them,
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: the island took three men from them. And in a sense,
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: they were not wrong. And with that, our story ends
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: a lot less dramatic or, I suppose, spooky than it seemed.
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: And as someone who spends quite a lot of time
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: talking about spooky stuff that isn't actually spooky, I actually
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: have a plan for next year, right? Which depends, basically,
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: on how much the world is on fire. Because I'm
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: either going to focus on, like, the worst people in history, like, ever.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: Because I think that's more terrifying than, ooh, ghosties. That
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: being said, if the world is still particularly quite horrible,
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: I'm going to focus on ghosties, right? I want to
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: go to haunted places. I want to go to the
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: haunted places. We're going to get haunted. And as someone
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: who is a sceptic, who still goes, ah, ghosties. Um, yeah.
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: I'm a full-on wimp. Not going to lie. Now, um,
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: That being said, I do know some people who cannot
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: make it through Casper the Friendly Ghost, so I'm better
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: than that. But with that, it is recommendation time for
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: reading The Lamplighters. It's a fiction book, but it's kind
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: of based on Ellen Moore. And it's quite good. It's
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: quite good. I bought it because initially I thought it
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: was non-fiction. And then I went, this isn't right. And
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: turns out, no, because it's fiction. But it's good. It's
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: good fiction. It's okay. It's okay. I was just disappointed
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: with myself. But that's because somebody said to me, oh,
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: it's about this. And I went, oh, and I bought it.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: And then it wasn't. But it's fine. It's a fictional
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: story loosely based on this. So listen to it. Read it.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: Maybe you can listen to it. If you want to
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: listen to it in an audiobook, read. Go to town.
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: Go to town. Go to town. Right? Read it. Whatever
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: way you need to read it. For watching, I've been
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: watching a cartoon called Haunted Hotel. It is, I'm going
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: to say, surprisingly wholesome for a show that has a
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: character called Stabby Pete. Stabby Pete is one of my
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: favourite characters. And listen, I don't know why, I'm very
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: fond of Stabby Pete. He just wants to stab. Stab, stab.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: And for listening, actually... I've been listening to Southern Gothic. Listen,
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: sometimes you just have an idea in your head. I
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: used to watch a TV show called Southern Gothic. I'm
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: fairly certain I did. I'm fairly certain I did. I...
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: I did. You know what? You know what I want
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: to do? You know what I want to do? If
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: you've made it to this part of the show, hello, welcome.
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: If you've made it to the end, I would love
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: to do, like, like a Twin Peaks or a something.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: Like I'd love to rent out like a little, like
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: a little, a little theatre, like a small movie theatre.
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: I don't know if that's a thing, but like a
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: little theatre where you've got like, I don't know, 50
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: seats or something and just like all watch a movie
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: together and then hang out after in chat or like
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: watch Twin Peaks or watch an episode of Southern Gothic
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: or something something like that there's gonna be like a
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: weird a weird ass silly movie that we can watch
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: I just think it'd be fun if somebody has a
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: small theatre anywhere in the US actually at this point
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: anywhere in the US we can make it happen email
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: me there's a contact form on my website It is
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: the best way to get through to me because, my God,
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: I have so many messages coming from you guys. So,
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: best way to move to that and make it safer.
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: But with that, my voice is really going now. I've
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: got to go drink my special tea and I'm going
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: to wish you all good luck. Adios. Au revoir. Au revoir,
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: my friends. Oh, and don't forget to let me know
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: what you're dressing up as for Halloween. Bye-bye.