Bid for €15m to turn Spike Island into Alcatraz-style attraction

HERITAGE CAMPAIGN IRELAND MAY soon have its very own Alcatraz-style prison tourist attraction.

Heritage campaigners have applied for a multi-million euro grant to transform Spike Island in Cork Harbour into a visitor centre similar to the one on the site of Alcatraz prison in San Francisco.

Two years ago, the Department of Justice was considering developing a new prison on Spike Island. However, Cobh Tourism chairman Michael Martin spearheaded a campaign to preserve the site, insisting the county had its very own "Devil's Island" on its doorstep.

The Government subsequently decided to transfer the Spike Island prison to Kilworth in north Cork. Since then, Martin has held a Save Spike conference in Cork, during which an expert panel of speakers, including the marketing manager of Alcatraz, Rich Weideman, spoke about the immense possibilities of the site.

Weideman said that Spike Island has a much more significant history than Alcatraz, with huge potential as a tourist attraction.

Cork County Council has given the Spike committee funds to carry out a feasibility study on the site. More importantly, an application of over €15 million has been made to Fáilte Ireland, which has a fund for such developments.

Martin says a Spike Island tourist attraction would be a major success as island prisons attract huge numbers of visitors.

Alcatraz, for example, receives about 1.4 million visitors each year, and Fort McHenry, off Baltimore, which served as a transit prison in the American Civil War, attracts about 700,000 visitors annually.

"Spike is our Alcatraz. I have been to many similar-type attractions and they are hugely successful. Alcatraz was only a prison for 25 years but it gets 1.2 million visitors a year," Martin said.

"People are fascinated by penal history. It wouldn't take a huge amount of work to turn it into a success."

Spike first became a prison in the mid-19th century. It was often the last place in Ireland prisoners saw before being transported overseas.

At the time, it held as many as 2,500 prisoners, the equivalent of the current national jail population.

© 2008 The Irish Times

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times