Nostalgia: Marking 85 years since return of Spike Island

This past weekend, visitors flocked to Cork Harbour to watch as Spike Island was lit up by a special fireworks display.

The momentous occasion on July 8, 2023, marked 85 years since the historic handover of Spike Island from Britain to Ireland on July 11, 1938.

The island had remained under British control for 17 years after Irish independence. The island’s fort and strategic setting were considered so important by the British, they insisted on keeping it as part of the Cork Harbour forts.

Other Cork treaty ports included Berehaven and Lough Swilly, which were held on to by the British for defence purposes, as agreed in the Anglo-Irish Treaty.

It took 17 years of fierce negotiation during a trade war between Ireland and Britain to secure Spike Island’s return in 1938, just in time to save the remote outpost from German bombers and almost certain destruction.

With Éamon de Valera present, the first tricolour was hoisted over the island on July 11, 1938, which an article from The Echo’s archives captures:

“From the hills overlooking Cork Harbour, one looked down today on gaily bedecked Cove and saw moving about its streets many thousands of people, many of them Americans on holiday, who were eagerly awaiting the historic event which takes place this evening, namely, the formal transference of the harbour forts from British to Irish charge.”

The commemoration of Spike Island’s handover has become an annual event, with 1,300 fireworks lighting up the sky to represent each of the 1,300 convicts who were confined to the harsh Victorian and modern prisons.

“This year marks the 140th anniversary of the closing of the convict prison in 1883,” Spike Island’s museum curator Dorota Gubbins told The Echo.

“The first Victorian convicts arrived in October, 1847, at the height of the Great Famine, and soon after, Spike Island had become the largest prison in Britain and Ireland, at one point holding over 2,300 convicts.”

Spike opened as a civilian prison after Fort Mitchel was handed over to the Department of Justice from the Department of Defence in March, 1985.

There were on average 100 inmates held on Spike during the summer of 1985.

This situation was described as a recipe for disaster as they were not in secure cellular accommodation, and on the night of Saturday, August 31, 1985, a riot erupted and the night guards were quickly overpowered and the prisoners took temporary charge of the fort.

Spike Prison was closed in 2004 and the island has since been gifted to Cork County Council by the State for development as a major tourist attraction.