“GHOSTLY GOINGS ON AT THE EUROPEAN ALCATRAZ”

After dark tours are returning to Spike Island Cork for the Halloween season, as the island attraction closes out its 2019 season.  The Cork harbour island has been home to a monastery, fortress and centuries of island homes, but its use as an island prison on 4 separate occasions has seen its fame grow and earn it the title of ‘Europe’s Alcatraz’. 

The popular After Dark tours which were launched in 2017 allow visitors to explore the abandoned prisons, sit in solitary cells and discover and place of punishment that was once called ‘Ireland’s hell.  During the torchlight and candlelight tour guides share the dark history of the island to an over 15’s only audience, telling stories that cannot be told to any day tour.  Areas visited include sections off limits to day tours, like the abandoned jail that held prisoners in the mid-1800’s, in 1921 and again from 1985 to 2004.  Others sections include the children’s prison which held boys as young as 11 in the 1850’s, when Victorians saw no distinction in how to punish a man and a boy.  Visitors also see the ‘dark cells’, a place of desperate suffering where prisoners were chained to the wall in windowless cells with no bed or furniture, just straw on the ground which they lay on for up to 23 ½ hours a day. 

With the island holding the most notorious of Ireland’s murderers and criminals and the original ‘Punishment block’ prison cells part of the experience, the tours have unsurprisingly thrown up many accounts of ghostly sightings and experiences.  There have been several images sent to the islands team after tours of what appear to be dark figures roaming the halls.  One image taken by visitors Louise Bunyan in 2018 prompted a visit from an American production company to feature Spike Island in its show ‘Legendary Locations’, airing now on the Discovery channel.  The image was taken in an empty cell block but while taking the snap the facial recognition on her camera triggered.  On reviewing the shot and zooming in while existing the cell block with her friends, Miss Bunyan could clearly make out the ghostly shape of a man in the empty cell block.  Work to bring up the light while not editing the original image further highlighted the figure, which appears to be carrying something across the prison. 

Another image taken by photographer Shea Wolfe in 2016 shows a large dark figure in what at the time was an empty cell, another unexplained occurrence but the islands tour guide know the story well.  “Some of the inmates here complained of being visited by a ‘dark entity’ in the night time” said Spike Island supervisor John Goulding.  “One inmate in particular complained of these visits and he did go on to do some terrible thing”.   The abandoned jail in particular seems to have many stories and sightings attached to it, and even a member of staff had an uncomfortable time in the block.  “One of our guides was sweeping up in the area with a dustpan and brush when she was pushed over”, recounted Mr Goulding.  When she looked expecting to see another guide messing, there was no one else present”.  “She left the block in tears and refused to return there, and many of the guides will not work in the area alone”.   

Other images show dark shapes and figures in supposedly empty cells and corridors, and the images can be views on the islands ‘After Dark’ Facebook pages.

The island is also open for regular day tours on weekends, halfterms and occasional mid-week days, the schedule can be viewed at www.spikeislandcork.ie, as the island closes out a successful 2019 that has seen its numbers grow by a further 15%.  Having opened to 27000 visitors in 2016 the island is set to welcome over 80000 visitors in 2019.

Island manager John Crotty said they are excited to see the visitors numbers growing as a result of adding a larger second ferry in May this year.  “It has been a good year for us and great year in the context of the wider tourism situation, with some sites reporting reduced numbers”.  “The weather did not help our domestic visits and the international uncertainty is having an impact, but our numbers are progressing nicely as we continue grow our profile and expand our offering”.   The island added a larger 2^nd ferry in 2019, a new ‘Independence’ and has new walking trails.  In 2020 there are plans to add increased interactive interpretation, a stage for performances and new tour formats.