The Blackwater Lightship

Colm Tóibín’s 1999 novel, The Blackwater Lightship, is set in 1990s Ireland and takes place, predominantly, in an old house perched on a crumbling, seaside cliff in County Wexford. Two lighthouses once stood within view of the house. Now one of them – the Blackwater Lightship – is gone, and its absence resonates with the loss that haunts the family at the center of the story. Helen O’Doherty’s younger brother, twenty-eight-year-old Declan, is dying. At his request, Helen joins Declan and their estranged mother, Lily, at their grandmother’s home for five days. During this short reunion, longstanding grievances come to light that afford Helen newfound understandings of love and family.

Thirty-something Helen is, by all appearances, successful. Her career serving as Ireland’s youngest school headmistress is impressive, and her husband, Hugh, is easy-going and affectionate. With their two young sons, Helen and Hugh reside in Dublin in a comfortable, middle-class house. While Helen often struggles to overcome her emotionally reserved nature and is subject to gloominess, Hugh’s affability and warmth offset her moods.

To celebrate the end of the school year, Helen and Hugh host a dinner party at their home. The next morning, Hugh and the two children head off for a holiday in Donegal. Helen anticipates a few quiet days to herself, but her solitude is soon interrupted by a knock on the door. The stranger on her doorstep introduces himself as Paul, a friend of Declan. He tells Helen that her brother is gravely ill with AIDS and wants her to visit him in the hospital. Although Helen knows Declan is gay, she is stunned to learn he is suffering from AIDS and has been for some time.



At the hospital, Declan expresses his wish to return to their grandmother’s seaside home, where he and Helen lived for a brief time during their childhood. Their mother, Lily, and their grandmother, Dora, are not aware that Declan is gay and have no idea he is ill. Declan asks Helen to deliver them the news, along with his request that they all gather at Dora’s house. Two of Declan’s close friends, Paul and Larry, who have cared for him throughout his illness, will also join them.

As Helen drives to her grandmother’s home, she reflects on her estranged relationship with her mother. Helen and Lily have not seen one another for ten years. Lily did not attend Helen’s wedding and has never met Hugh or her daughter’s two sons. Helen has not discussed with Hugh her “bitter resentment against her mother,” and “for a long time […] had hoped she would never have to think about it again.” Having distanced herself from her family and her past, Helen is now plunged into their midst again.

So it is that that Helen, her estranged family, and two strangers convene, uncomfortably, at Dora’s rickety house to see Declan through the last stage of AIDS. As Helen says, Declan “felt that at a time like this we would all forget our differences.” However, their differences run deep and tap into personal perceptions of betrayal as well as generational assumptions about gender and sexuality.



Although Dora is in her eighties, she is remarkably plucky and progressive, but cannot bring herself to say the word “gay.” Her daughter, Lily, is more conservative and less tolerant toward the two gay outsiders, Paul and Larry. These men have become Declan’s surrogate family, however, and have “mothered” him in his sickness. Their skillful and compassionate care for Declan during the agonies of his disease undermines Lily’s sense of importance, and she eventually tells them to leave. Paul refuses to abandon Declan, assuring Lily that Declan loves her and advising her to “stop feeling sorry for” herself.

Although Larry speaks freely with Helen and Dora about his family’s refusal to accept his homosexuality, Helen develops a richer rapport with Paul. During their lengthy conversations, Helen finally addresses the event that fractured her family. Twenty years ago, when Helen was eleven, she and Declan were deposited at Dora’s house while their mother and father went away to Dublin. Months passed with no word from their parents or any explanation for their disappearance aside from cryptic references to medical tests.

Finally, Lily returned alone. Helen’s father had died from cancer, and her mother was shattered. As Lily withdrew emotionally from her children, Helen, lacking a proper model for coping with loss, buried her feelings of grief and abandonment. Helen tells Paul, “When my father died, I was left alone by my mother and grandmother. […] I got no comfort or consolation from them. And these two women are the parts of myself that I have buried.” With her brother’s impending death and his friends’ attendant demonstration of love and compassion, Helen achieves a new clarity about the failings that followed her father’s death.



Like Helen, Paul is guarded, but he reciprocates her candor by talking about his husband, François, and how they secretly married. He reveals that he met François when he was a teen and before he understood his own sexuality. Their friendship evolved into romance after they traveled to France, François’ homeland. Actively faithful Catholics, they found an accommodating priest in Belgium who married them in a clandestine, but lavish ceremony. Declan, “like a small boy,” sought refuge with Paul and François whenever he needed to be “looked after and listened to and protected.”

Declan was afraid his mother would refuse him, but, in his final need, she does not. His physical condition worsens and, overwhelmed with pain, he cries out for Lily. She holds him and sings to him. As he faces death, Declan finally secures the love and acceptance he wants from his mother.

After many missed opportunities, Helen and Lily open a dialogue about their broken relationship. Helen speaks of the abandonment she felt following her father’s death. She confesses that, although “irrational, […] I thought you had locked him away somewhere […], that it was all your fault.” In response, Lily, at last, acknowledges the all-consuming grief she experienced when her husband died, along with anger that her faith in the endurance of love had been betrayed. By finally sharing their feelings, Helen and Lily begin to remedy years of mutual misunderstanding and move toward reconciliation.



The vigil at Dora’s house ends when Declan becomes so ill he must return to the hospital. During the drive, Lily and Helen sing to Declan, hoping to give him some comfort as his life dwindles. Helen invites her mother to her house for the first time, and Lily accepts.

The Blackwater Lightship was a finalist for the 1999 Booker Prize.