{"id":210033,"date":"2025-12-25T09:45:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-25T09:45:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/210033\/"},"modified":"2025-12-25T09:45:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-25T09:45:08","slug":"the-indo-daily-irelands-alcatraz-the-colourful-history-of-spike-island","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/210033\/","title":{"rendered":"The Indo Daily: \u2018Ireland&#8217;s Alcatraz\u2019 \u2014 The colourful history of Spike Island"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/8ed655cb-b4c8-4d05-9b72-633ca969103b.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Spike Island, or &#8220;Ireland\u2019s Alcatraz&#8221;, is a small coastal enclave off the coast of Cobh in Co Cork. But while most of us associate its colourful history as one of a battle-hardened prison, its story begins much earlier, centuries earlier in fact.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Spike Island\u2019s rich history extends as far back as 635 AD when Saint Mochuda set up a monastery on the island, which lasted for 500 years. It was a time when Ireland was famous for its manuscripts and known as a world centre for crafts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">The island went on to play a key role as a fortress for the British, who invested heavily in Cork Harbour as a line of defence against the French. This investment into the island was one of the most expensive construction projects in Irish history.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Spike Island is still Britain and Ireland\u2019s largest-ever prison and was used as a prison facility up until 2004. A popular tourist attraction since 2016,<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Spike Island now is a far cry from its dark past, which included the1985 prison riots and the housing of Ireland\u2019s most well-known criminals such as Martin Cahill and James Grey, also known as &#8216;Jack in the Box&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Today on the Indo Daily Ellen Coyne is joined by John Crotty, former general Manager of Spike Island and author of Spike Island: The Rebels,<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Residents and Crafty Criminals of Ireland\u2019s Historic Island, to discuss the island\u2019s colourful past and the potential histories yet to be unfurled.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">*This podcast was first released in May, 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Spike Island, or &#8220;Ireland\u2019s Alcatraz&#8221;, is a small coastal enclave off the coast of Cobh in Co Cork.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":210034,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,898,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-210033","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-latest-news-ticker","11":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210033\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/210034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}