Spike Island's monastic past, colourful criminals, cinema 'clips', and parole firsts

From a base used by smugglers, to a Cromwellian 'holding depot' and a naval base, a new book captures it all. Written by its former general manager John Crotty, Spike Island — The Rebels and Crafty Criminals of Ireland's Historic Island sheds light on the likely location of a monastic scriptorium on the island, which is likely where monks produced some exquisite works. 

Crotty spent five years amassing a huge amount of information on the island, some of which has never been published before.

Monastic beginnings

Mr Crotty points out that Spike Island is long known to have been home to a monastery, which was constructed in 635AD and likely lasted at least 500 years.

“Over the last 50 years new research has identified Spike Island as the likely source of manuscript manufacture, especially in the 7th and 8th century. A sacred scriptorium is now believed to be buried beneath Spike Island’s soil, producing the majestic manuscripts of the era," says Mr Crotty. 

"The significance of this is enormous as Ireland at that time was a world-class centre for craft production, producing works like the Book of Kells, the Tara Brooch, and the Ardagh Chalice."

He has identified four separate 17th century maps and paintings which seem to indicate the likely location of the monastery, and its scriptorium.

The first is a Richard Bartlett map from 1625AD, clearly showing a ruined structure with a cross on one corner. A later 17th century painting clearly shows a ruined church-like structure in the exact same location.

A second map created by the highly respected cartographer Thomas Phillips, which was produced for King George III, clearly shows a ruined building of church-like dimensions.

A third and fourth map, sourced from 1693, the highly reliable Great Britain’s Coasting Pilot, shows a squared off area in the exact same location to the island’s east, with the words ‘a burying ground’.

“The location of the Spike Island monastery, long thought lost, may not be so lost after all, and if there is indeed a sacred scriptorium with its unknown secrets it may lie waiting to be uncovered,” says Mr Crotty.

Apart from producing manuscripts, the monks’ main income came from fishing and farming.

Ireland's Alcatraz

The island prison — dubbed Ireland's Alcatraz — was famous for its hardship, especially during the Great Famine era. 

The death rate among inmates peaked at 12% around that time as it became the largest prison in the world in the 1850s, housing more than 2,400 men. Many were incarcerated there for little or no reason.

“Famous humanists such as German philosopher Karl Marx would lament the harsh treatment of Fenians (later incarcerated there by the British), particularly following the death there of Fenian prisoner Michael Terbert in 1870,” Mr Crotty tells the Irish Examiner.

But for all its initial problems, Spike Island became part of a penal solution that later influenced the rest of the world and is still in use today.

Dubbed the Irish system, the new concept had three parts. The first involved nine months of solitary confinement in Mountjoy in Dublin. The prisoner then served the majority of the rest of their sentence on Spike Island where a system of hard labour was coupled with education and reform efforts.

On Spike Island the prison authorities also operated a mark system, an innovative approach where good behaviour was rewarded with special privileges and potential early release.

The final part of the sentence saw the inmate sent to an intermediary (step-down) prison such as Lusk, Co Dublin, where they were
prepared for
release.

“This involved another world first, a parole officer, with Dubliner James Organ the first ‘supervisor of released convicts’ who later wrote and lectured on the subject extensively. The Irish system that Spike Island was part of was studied and copied by other countries across the globe, with large parts of it still in use today, including efforts like prisoner education, the merits of good behaviour and parole,” says Mr Crotty.

Jack in the Box

Spike was home to thousands of inmates over the years, but perhaps none more colourful than Jack In the Box.

James Grey, which was his real name, was born in Manchester and for a time worked as a Dragoon (a section in the British Cavalry). He later got an office job but when made redundant, took a large box of stuff home from his former employers.

“Sitting staring at his worthless box, he got an idea, and went to work. He padded the interior of the box with a lining and crafted a clever assortment of springs and levers which allowed him to open and close it from inside. To all the world it looked like a normal luggage trunk, but it contained a surprise,” says Mr Crotty.

Grey had an accomplice who used to post him in the box from Manchester to Ireland via Liverpool’s ferry service. En route he would pop out of the train and rob valuables stored in its luggage compartment He would repeat the same trick while in a ship’s luggage hold.

This enterprise became so lucrative for Grey that he could afford homes in Dublin and Manchester. He got away with his thieving activities for four years.

“But he was undone by his own charity,” says Mr Crotty. “He took in a homeless youth in Dublin who sat reading the paper in his sitting room one Sunday. Turning the page, he abruptly made some excuses about forgetting an appointment and swiftly exited the house. Suspicious, Grey picked up the paper he was reading to see a reward for elaborate stolen shawls. Looking around the room, those very same shawls were draped around the furniture.”

The youth contacted the police and it wasn’t long before they burst into the house. There they discovered Grey’s box and started dismantling it, with springs and levers flying in all directions.

The mystery of the previously reported train and ship robberies was solved, and Grey would spend the next four years in a very different box, arriving on Spike Island in 1856.

Island life

Between the 1950s and 1970s, up to 300 people occupied the island’s village. They were soldiers and other State employees along their families.

Mr Crotty interviewed several former residents for the book, who recounted their experience of a mainly quiet island upbringing. “Some went to school on the island and some prayed for bad weather, so the boat could not sail and bring the teacher over from Cobh, giving them a day off,” he says.

One resident, Michael O’Connor, recalls his father’s role in the military, serving in the fort and another impromptu role his father, Dan O’Connor, had, that of the island’s film censor. “A film would arrive by boat and my father would be sure no one else got at it first and he would have it sent to his house. He would then wait until we went up to bed, but we would always sneak out to watch from the stairs. He would open up the cannisters and hold the movie reel up to the light and then out would come the scissors,” says Mr O’Connor.

“Now, this was the 1950s and there was hardly anything (inappropriate) on show in the (public) movies, but he would still snip away. It led to a funny occurrence because I remember one of my pals went to see a film in the cinema in Cobh, Outlaw, I think it was called, with a well-endowed woman named Jane Russell. He said he watched the film and there was a scene with a bit of cleavage, but he was baffled, because he had already seen the film on Spike Island, and there was no bit of cleavage in that,” says Mr O’Connor.

He says he also remember years later his mother and father were discussing how his father used to censor the films, and his mother said she had always meant to ask him, full of devilment, what he did with the clips of film he removed?

Mr O’Connor says his father laughed, because he knew he had to tell her, and replied that he gave them to the boys (soldiers) in the canteen the next day “because they needed a bit of entertainment”.

Trials and tribulations

Mr Crotty’s book is the first of its kind to detail the complete 1,300-year history of the island.

He also details the trials and tribulations of many of the 1850s convicts and 1921 Republican prisoners held there, as well as those of the more modern inmates from 1985 to 2004.

Mr Crotty’s book is the first of its kind to detail the complete 1,300-year history of the island. He details the trials and tribulations of many of the 1850s convicts and 1921 Republican prisoners held there, as well as those of the more modern inmates from 1985 to 2004.

It provides new details of the momentous 1938 handover by the British of the facility (under the Treaty Ports Agreement) to Irish Free State forces, featuring firsthand accounts.

Then taoiseach Éamon de Valera attended the handover with many other dignitaries. It is estimated that more than 40,000 spectators thronged the streets of Cobh to watch British troops depart onboard a Royal Navy destroyer and witness the Tricolour being raised over the island for the very first time.

John Crotty managed Spike Island for six years during which time it won international tourism awards. During his tenure he launched its popular ‘After Dark’ tours, behind the scenes tours, annual (British) handover celebrations and the first Spike Island Literary Festival.