There is evidence that at least 1,200 men died on the island.Ī children’s prison held up to 100 young offenders aged 12 to 16.

“The prisoners are like a menagerie of wild animals that snarl and fight in defiance of their keepers,” wrote prison chaplain Charles Bernard Gibson in 1863. Prisoners not held in solitary confinement were crammed 12 to a cell overcrowding, malnutrition and poor sanitation meant fatal diseases and mental illness were rife. “That’s why it quickly became known as ‘Ireland’s Hell’ and ‘Hell on Earth’.” “In the mid-19th century, Spike was not only the largest prison in the world, with 2,300 inmates, but also a place of severe punishment – of hard labour, strict discipline and religious instruction,” said John Flynn, Spike Island’s lead tour guide. Then there’s the fascinating, if dark, history. For one thing, there is a lot to see on the island, from six-inch guns secreted away at the end of deep bastion tunnels, to the imposing central parade ground, an artillery “gun park”, striking rampart outlooks south to the mouth of the harbour, and modern cells that echo and clank like something out of 70s sitcom Porridge.

Last year, at the World Travel Awards, for example, Spike Island was named “Europe’s Leading Tourist Attraction” (somewhat remarkably ahead of such competitors as the Acropolis, La Sagrada Familia and Buckingham Palace).

It is the vivid combination of a penal history to rival Alcatraz (the prison at Spike Island is actually said to be 10 times larger in size) and a long political history to match Robben Island (there is evidence that Cromwell’s troops held Royalist prisoners on Spike as early as the 1650s) – and its reopening as a visitor attraction in the summer of 2016 – that has sparked renewed interest in the place and its violent history.

Spike island