In October of that year, a storm struck, washing away temporary barracks that had been erected on the island, and killing fourteen workmen—the worst such disaster in Ireland's history of lighthouse construction.

[7] The surviving workers clung to the island's slippery rocks for two full days before being discovered and rescued.

[7] The Tuskar Rock air disaster occurred near the rock on 24 March 1968 when Aer Lingus flight 712, en route from Cork to London, crashed into the sea with the loss of all 61 people on board.

It is one of many Viking place names found in the south of Wexford and means simply large (tu) rock (skar) in Old Norse.

[8] Tuskar lighthouse is mentioned in John Masefield's ballad The Yarn of the Loch Achray as the place where the clipper Loch Achray dropped her tug, before sailing to the South Atlantic where she was wrecked off the River Plate.