ALL visitors must pre-book a free grounds access pass at www.hookheritage.ie
The 800-year-old Lighthouse, which has been open to the public year-round since 2001, will now re-open to visitors on June 29th 2020 following its temporary closure due to COVID19.
The iconic Hook Lighthouse is the most popular tourist attraction in Wexford and the team at the lighthouse have taken carefully measured steps to re-open in a safe manner to all of their visitors. Hook Lighthouse, the Lightkeepers Café and the outdoor dining option the Seahorse will all open 7 days per week from June 29th from 10 am to 6 pm with last access to the grounds at 4 pm and dining closing at 5 pm.
In order to ensure the safety of all staff members and the health and safety of visitors, ALL visitors must pre-book a free pass online in order to access the grounds of the lighthouse at www.hookheritage.ie as a limited number of passes will be available for each day. In terms of taking a guided tour of the lighthouse, visitors can phone 051 397 055 to book in advance or once visitors are at the lighthouse they will be able to purchase tour tickets to take a private tour of the lighthouse tower with their own family members or in groups of 5.
Manager at the Lighthouse Lorraine Waters says, “We are delighted to be able to re-open to welcome visitors again to Hook Lighthouse. Behind the scenes, we have been changing lots of our access points on-site and arranging new systems in order to create the safest possible environment for the Hook team and all of our visitors.
We are asking all of our visitors to help us to help them and to keep in mind all social distance guidelines and most importantly, for now, we require everyone planning to visit to log onto our website and book a free grounds access pass for the date that they would like to visit.
Our award-winning Lightkeepers Café will be open to visitors with socially distanced seating available; the café menu will offer homemade scones, sandwiches, soups, chowder and snacks. In addition, we will also have our outdoor dining options ‘The Seahorse’ and our BBQ Station open and additional outdoor seating is available on the extensive lighthouse lawns. Our playground will also be open and sanitised every hour and there will be additional sanitation stations located inside and outside throughout the grounds.
Tours of the lighthouse will also be available to visitors who are on-site or can be pre-booked by phoning 051 397055. Due to the size of the medieval 800-year-old tower, private tours will be facilitated to family groups and to groups of 5 persons.
We want to assure all of our visitors that our team has taken every step through our re-opening planning process to ensure a safe environment for everyone and we look forward to welcoming all of our visitors to enjoy what is not only a beautiful destination but one of Ireland’s living historic monuments as the oldest original operating lighthouse in the world.”
Free passes for access to the grounds of Hook Lighthouse are now available and these can now be pre-booked at www.hookheritage.ie