Author John Crotty writes about riots, escapes, unauthorised autopsies and Michael Jackson’s Bubbles troubles

 

Spike Island off the coast of Cobh in Cork Harbour is famously known as Ireland’s historic island. A new book on the island’s complete history by Waterford’s John Crotty (pictured) has shone new light on the location, revealing its monastic, military, penal and social history in full.

The author brought a keen interest to the island’s religious history, having had a Saint Augustine missionary granduncle who spent forty years on overseas duty in Africa. Crotty’s research opened a window to 7th century Ireland when Irish monks were seeking remote locations for self-exile and retreat.

They were following in the footsteps of Saint Anthony and early Egyptian monasteries, often heading for isolated spots like a ‘desertum in ociano’, a ‘desert in the ocean’ or island. Spike Island’s day arrived in 635AD when Saint Mochuda was granted Spike Island and travelled there with dozens of his followers, beginning a centuries’ long monastic operation.
Mochuda remained just one year before he moved on to establish another important monastery at Lismore, County Waterford. He left more than forty followers and the community thrived.

The island’s 104 acres could be farmed while the surrounding seas had abundant fish. The island was likely well forested with plentiful stone in its quarries allowing for construction of essential buildings. The likely arrangement was a central rectangular church with circular surrounding accommodation, with livestock like cattle, pigs, goats and chickens common and dogs and cats to control vermin. Food production could be complimented by weaving, clothmaking and metal work, producing goods for trade with mainland communities.

Later references would gush that ‘Inis-Pic is a most holy place in which an exceedingly devout community constantly dwell’.
Documents suggest the monastery survived at least 500 years, with temporary abandonment probable when the Vikings passed by.
These facts make the location of heightened monastic interest but recent research has revealed more.

A 1950’s review of an ancient manuscript, the Liber de Ordine Creaturarum, thought to be of Spanish origin, showed the document was likely associated with Cork Habour, ‘where a monastery said to have been founded by Saint Carthach (Mochuda) was located on Spike Island’.This implies Spike Island was involved in the manufacture of the majestic manuscripts of the era, no small matter as works like the Book of Kells and Ardagh Chalice were made around this time. With added impetus to find the missing monastery, the author’s research revealed something startling.

Four 17th century maps all show a structure of interest in the same location, to the island’s east.
Three show what appears to be an unexplained ruined church-like structure, while a fourth shows a squared off area with the words ‘a burying ground’. It seems there is mystery still left in our modern world with secrets waiting to be discovered in Spike Island’s soil.

The British Military arrived in 1779 to start a 206-year military occupation of the island, building an enormous 24-acre fortress in 1804 that stands tall to this day. It is so large, two Croke Park stadiums could fit side by side within its walls. For all the military might and monastic endeavour, the island is most famous as a penal legend. The first of four prisons arrived in the 1600s as Oliver Cromwell’s captives were sent from all over Ireland to Cork Harbour before banishment overseas. A second opened in 1847 at the height of the Irish Famine to house Ireland’s starving, those forced into crimes of survival.

It grew to become the largest prison in the world, holding 2,400 prisoners making it the largest ever prison in Ireland or Britain.
Over 1,000 inmates died in the first desperate seven years as overcrowding led to a death rate of 12 per cent.

Famous inmates arrived like James Grey of Manchester, known as ‘Jack in the Box’. Following a redundancy he had the clever idea of crafting a large box into a luggage trunk with a secret compartment he could hide inside. With the help of an accomplice he posted himself to Ireland, popping out along the way to rob the train and ferries luggage carriage of valuables.

Continue reading in this week’s Ireland’s Own

Spike Island – the rebels, residents and crafty criminals of Ireland’s historic island, published by Merrion Press and written by John Crotty, is out now.