Spike Island

Spike Island was used as an island prison on four occasions over 400 years, the first in the 1600’s holding Cromwellian prisoners.

The second in the 1840’s became the largest prison in the world, and there has never been a larger prison in Britain or Ireland before or since.

The third opened in 1921 and it held over 1200 Irish Republican prisoners during the Irish War of Independence.

While the final prison opened in 1985, and amazingly only closed in 2004! See hundreds of years of penal development, only at Spike Island Cork.