Spooky Spike: Chilling tour on Cork’s island of the lost souls

I’m standing in a chilly and dank, pitch-black tunnel which used to house some of Ireland’s most dangerous convicts. I literally can’t even see my hand in front of my face.

It’s the sort of hell on earth that would very quickly drive a man incarcerated here, stuck in solitude with only his mind for company, to take leave of his senses. A chill goes down my spine.

Men were locked up here, shielded from daylight, for 23 or more hours a day; just them, a cold cell, and a latrine for company. Their food was forced through a hatch by a hand with an unseen face.

Many men must have gone insane or died here, all those years ago. Perhaps their ghosts remain, eternally forced to walk the confined space where they lived their final hours. Wait, was that a shape I saw out of the corner of my eye...

Suddenly, a light flickers on and I am jolted back to reality.

It sounds like the setting for a nightmare, but I’m on the first of this year’s Spike Island After Dark tours, surrounded by more than 20 fellow trippers, keen to relish this insight into Ireland’s dark past in the witching hours.

Timed to coincide with the onset of Samhain, these spooky tours have been running annually since 2023 on the island off the coast of Cobh.

It’s the ideal partnership: Take the regular award-winning Spike Island daytime tour, add a night-time element, scatter a few skeletons in various nooks and crannies in the historic buildings, and, hey presto, you have a chilling attraction in the lead up to Halloween.

However, fear not, those of a nervous disposition - visitors are told from the off that there are no jump scares on the tour; the dark past of Spike is already so horrific that you just need to soak in the history oozing from the walls of this place of long-time incarceration, and your mind will do the rest.

The tour starts off in brightly-lit Cobh on a mild and calm Friday evening. The boat takes us brave souls bobbing - things that go bump in the night - across the harbour and we alight on Spike.

The island has a known history dating back 1,300 years. that spans a 7th-century monastery, a massive British military fortress, and a long stint as the world’s largest prison.

It is this latter history that the tour taps into. The first prison here opened during the Great Famine, and grew to hold more than 2,300 inmates. It expanded over the decades of often brutal British rule, and was still being used as a youth prison in the 1980s.

More than 1,000 prisoners died during the harsh early years of the prison alone, earning it a dark reputation that it has never shaken off. Their graves are located here.

We are reminded of this as we make the walk from the pier on Spike and head off up the hill to the prison area. Suddenly, Cobh and its twinkling lights and warm hearths seems a world away behind us as we enter a twilight zone of Irish history.

Guides then lead us off through the labyrinth of tunnels and corridors in the various former prison buildings, where prisoners spent their miserable days, filling us in on the horrors that made up the Victorian penal system.

Their attitude to the poor and wretched was infamously cruel, even in their own land. It doesn’t surprise us to hear the Irish felt the full brunt of their punishment system.

Children as young as 12 were locked up for the crime of stealing food during the Famine. Alongside them were adults who ranged from truly evil murderers to poor souls who were mentally ill, to people fighting for the freedom of Ireland, and a host of ne’er-do-wells and innocents.

One time, the inmates fought back and bludgeoned to death a particularly cruel guard with an iron bar, and the entire prison was forced to build a new block as punishment.

The guides tell us how this Irish version of Alcatraz meant it was almost impossible for prisoners to escape, many who desperately tried were swept away by the strong tides, never to be seen again.

A few men imprisoned during the War of Independence did manage to flee the island and make it to dry land - rare examples of a happy ending in a place where so many found only suffering and subjugation.

I had visited the normal Spike Island tour with my family during the summer, and was enthralled by its wealth of heritage and the beautiful walks and scenery.

The After Dark tour offers a very different experience to that, and it’s a great way to spend a dark October night.

I brought my teenage son Thomas and we both enjoyed the experience.

After a few hours touring the tunnels and buildings, and hearing tales of their occupants’ miserable lives, including a break for a complementary tea and coffee in the island café, the visitors are then treated to a show by the Dungarvan mentalist Dean Jacob.

This was a light-hearted way to end the night, as Dean treated us to some amazing tricks and treats - including somehow guessing the correct number after getting five people to write down any number between 1 and 500 and asking an audience member to add up the total.

After that, the group headed back to the boat and we returned to the bright lights of Cobh, thankful that we wouldn’t be spending the midnight hour amongst the lost souls of Spike Island.

Spike Island After Dark takes place on Fridays and Saturdays in October, and also on Sunday, October 25 and Monday, October 26, and from October 28-31.

Tours run from 5pm to 8pm or from 7.30pm to 10.30pm.

Tickets are €44.45. Over 18s only, ID required. See www.spikeislandcork.ie