Bray Head’s World War Two 'EIRE' sign has been restored
The Eire sign located on Wicklow’s Bray Head, which dates back to WWII, has been restored by volunteers.
The sign, which was hidden for years, was rediscovered this summer thanks to large gorse wildfires.
The sign was spotted by a Garda Air Support Unit aircraft and immediately grabbed people’s fascination.
A Garda Air Support Unit crew spotted that the fire on Bray Head has revealed an “EIRE” sign dating from the Second World War.
— An Garda Síochána (@GardaTraffic) August 4, 2018
We see these around the coastline but haven’t seen this before. pic.twitter.com/I6cwIrIori
The markings were made during World War II to let passing attackers know that they were passing Ireland, and not Britain, and therefore a neutral country.
Local businessman Aidan O’Toole and three other volunteers spent the best part of a week cleaning the rocks and cutting back gorse roots in order to restore the sign to some of its' former glory.
The group has responded to an 'inaccuracy' in the markings - mainly that there is no fada.
"There was no fada on the original sign. We are just trying to restore the original."
As well as the word ‘Eire’ the sign also features the number eight, which was the Look Out Post number.
The volunteers plan to complete their renovations over the course of the next few weekends by fixing and painting the number 8 and the rectangular box that surrounds the sign.
Eirespace on Facebook recently captured all the Eire Markers around Donegal and the pictures are stunning.
