Our thanks to the Irish times for their excellent piece and great video on Spike Island, following their recent visit. Just one week to go before we will represent Europe at the World Travel Awards, and we find out if we have taken home the crown of the World's Leading Tourist Attraction 2017! Our thanks to all our visitors and Staff and Cork County Council for your support... https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/travel/stories-from-cork-s-spike-island-1.3312518

The Spike Island Charity Christmas Concert 2017, with music by the Courtyard Choir.

It’s your last chance to visit Spike Island in 2017 this weekend! Tickets are on sale online advance booking only for a 12pm ferry and guided tour, returning at 3.30pm. Our cafe will be open and our guides can offer a great visitor experience. We also have an After Dark tour Saturday night, leaving Cobh at 5pm and returning at 8pm. Experience the island prison and Fortress once known as Ireland’s hell. Advance online tickets only. And the last few tickets for our charity Christmas concert this Sunday are on sale, just €15 for short tour, concert and free food and drink. Join us for a festive treat and see the island attraction named EUROPE’s Leading Tourist Attraction of 2017!

Just 20 spaces left! The Spike Island Charity Christmas concert is this Sunday and 100% of proceeds go to the Simon community. Tickets left for the 2pm departure, online purchase only, return at 5.30pm. For just €15 you can enjoy a return ferry journey, a short guided tour to the Fortress (optional), access to our Mitchel Hall for a festive concert by the brilliant Courtyard choir and then FREE tea/coffee and sandwiches in our cafe! It’s a brilliant way to get into the Christmas spirit, so join us for a great afternoon of entertainment! Our thanks to Cork County Council, Murphys Centra Cobh, the Courtyard Choir and Doyle Shipping Group for sponsoring this event.

ECSTATIC! Spike Island Cork makes it a hat trick in 2017, with an international award following a Cork award and now a National award to boot!! Tonight we were named the winner in the Chambers Ireland ‘Heritage and Built Environment’ category, at the Excellence in Local Government Awards. Well done and thank you to all our staff, volunteers, visitors, and particularly to the Cork County Council architects team and all at CCC and to our consultants, project and delivery teams who managed to recreate this historic island with Heritage and the environment always in mind. There are too many thanks to say individually, so we thank you all and say well done! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

As the sun sets on another Spike Island season, here are some great sunset pics of our awesome island! We are open this Saturday and the following, with one boat at 12pm by advance online booking only, no walk ups. We are then open to pre-booked groups of 15 or more only until February. Our beautiful island has seen many millennia of sunsets, watched first by hunter gathers who foraged Cork harbour’s shores. In the 6th century there were monks who meditated on our island retreat, while from the late 1700’s captains continually traded places with convicts as Spike went from Fort to prison on no less than 3 occasions. Today visitors to the island are of the more willing kind, as anyone keen to learn about Ireland’s past can do so in an unrivalled Irish setting. And with spectacular harbour views to boot! Join us for a late year visit to Fortress Spike Island.

“Upon no other island on the Irish coast have so many strangers eyes rested, or so few persons voluntarily set foot. Its slopes form almost the first land sighted by the homeward-bound mariner, and afford all but the last glimpse of Erin that in sorrow is seen by the departing Irish emigrant”. Much has changed at Spike Island and Cobh since James Coleman penned those beautiful words in his ‘Story of Spike Island’ book, which was published 125 years ago next year. Spike Island is no longer a place of incarceration where few voluntarily set foot. But during the 1800’s tens of thousands of convicts were crammed into its Victorian prison cells, many unfortunate victims of a cruel penal system. And the path of emigration has changed much since his time with airports replacing shipping ports as the main departure points, while Rosslare and Dublin are now the last sight of home for many sorrowful departing emigrants. During Mr Coleman’s time Cobh was the single largest emigration point in Ireland, from where an incredible 2.5 million Irish emigrated between 1840 and 1950. It’s piers were filled with tearful goodbyes and Spike Island with its fierce Fort and greens slopes would have taken from view family, friend and home. The story of emigration, transportation and incarceration are central to Spike Island and Cobh and you can discover more in Spike Island’s many museums and exhibitions, as well as at the Cobh Heritage Centre.

Our Heritage team on Spike Island are doing stellar work preserving the amazing history and heritage of Spike and the wider Cork harbour area. As well as cataloging and maintaining our finds, important projects include compiling convict lists from the 1920’s and 1850’s prison. They research our links to sites like Camden Fort Meagher and international forts and prisons, and fact check all of the interpretation present and planned on the island. They are even good enough to give their time to school tour visitors to Spike, doing archeology demonstrations in hands-on and classroom based environments. They are our custodians of culture and we salute their work!

We are FULLY BOOKED this weekend. Tickets for regular tours are available for Saturday 18th, 25th and Dec 02nd, departing at 12pm and returning at 3.30pm. We also have limited After Dark tickets for Saturday 25th and Dec 02nd, and the last few cinema club tickets for Sat 18th Nov. Join us for an island escape and journey through 1300 years of Irish history and mystery!

We were delighted to win our category at the Cork Business Awards 2017, as Spike Island was named the ‘Cork Arts and Entertainment Business of the year’. Our congratulations and thanks to all our staff for your hard work and all at Cork County Council, and our thanks to all our visitors this year and previously. We went to number one on TripAdvisor for Cork this year and have a near perfect Facebook rating. Our thanks and well done to Business Cork on a great event and to presenters PJ Coogan and Brenda Dennehy, with Island Manager John Crotty accepting the award. The Island is open on Saturdays only for the rest of November, advance online booking only. Groups of 15 or more can book a boat 7 days a week, and our After Dark and cinema nights continue!

SPIKE ISLAND CINEMA CLUB RETURNS, with a horror movie night screening of 'The Conjuring' on Sat Nov 18th. Just in case you didn't get enough chills this Halloween! Your experience starts with a ferry journey across Cork Harbour before our guides take you on an After Dark tour of our island Fortress and Prison. You'll hear stories of the island prison once known as Ireland's hell while sitting in solitary cells and walking abandoned prisons. After your 45 minute tour its on to our gift shop where you can purchase snacks and drinks for the movie, before our guides take you to the former Children's prison that now serves as our auditorium. Take your seat in this atmospheric building that once held up to 100 child inmates, and enjoy one of the best horror movies of all time. Your tour and movie experience complete we exit the Fortress and walk the outer island before boarding your ferry back to the mainland. All in all its a movie experience unrivaled anywhere in Ireland, so join us on Fortress Spike Island! Boats departs 5pm sharp, approx return at 8.45pm, online booking only. https://spikeislandcork.digitickets.co.uk/category/10588

Spike Island SCHOOL TOURS 2018 are now available for booking! The only school tour that starts and ends with a scenic ferry journey and offers a whole island of adventure and escape! We have two brilliant options for schools in 2018. Option 1 is a 2-3 hour tour, with a ferry journey across Cork Harbour followed by a guided tour of our outer island and Fortress. There is then some time to self explore before your return ferry back to Cobh, and this option costs just €11 per child including the ferry! You can also combine this visit with a trip to the nearby Cobh Heritage Centre or Titanic Cobh. Alternatively there is our very popular all day Island escape option, which combines a guided tour with great adventure activities! Typically running 10am to 3pm, here our history tour is broken up by great adventure activities tailored to all ages. Choose from Island orienteering and obstacle course runs to archeology digs and jailbreak olympics! Lunch can be enjoyed in our cafe with packed lunches welcome, and all this for just €18 per child for ferry, guided tour, adventure activities and full all day island and Fortress experience! We were fully booked in 2017 so please book early as ferry spaces are limited, just email us for more info. Will your school escape from Fortress Spike! http://www.spikeislandcork.ie/tours/school-tours

#Corcadorca #faraway #preview2

#sunnydays on #spikeislandcork ! Take our guided tour and walk in the footsteps of some of #irelands most infamous and notorious characters. #cork #cobh #irish #munster #fortressspike

The #celebrityeclipse making her way out of #cobh and past #spikeislandcork #cork #irishtourism #irish #irish

View from the office today. #Corcadorca #faraway #firstpreviewtonight #Nicedayforit

Dress rehearsal pic from #faraway #Corcadorca #mightgetabollockingforpostingthisbeforetheshowopens @mannyhally @botsy1 #firstpreviewtonight #someoperation

3 of 3 on Spike Island. This rather snazzy Aztec wannabe is enjoying the view out into The mouth of Cork Harbour. And sure why wouldn't you on a summer's day like today? Good luck seekers! #hideandseek #finderskeepers #secretstones @secretstones123 #spikeisland #cork #corkharbour #paintedrocks #paintedstones

Drop 2 of 3 on Spike island. A tricky one. This bubbly stone can be found nestled in amongst the daisies and Poppies along the banks of the ramparts near the lookout to the mouth of the harbour. #corkharbour #cork #spikeisland #cobh #secretstones #paintedstones #paintedrocks #finderskeepers #hideandseek #daisy #flowers @secretstones123 @spikeislandcork

1 of 3 dropped on Spike Island today. This one is in the entrance to the old fort. You can't miss it! #secretstones #paintedstones #paintedrocks #hideandseek #finderskeepers #spikeisland #cork #corkharbour #cobh @spikeislandcork @spikeisland @spikeadventure @secretstones123 @ig_cork @lovingcork @hellocork_ @corksredfm

tunnel time 😁#spikeisland #cobh #cork #summer2017

After being rained on for an hour, it finally cleared enough to take a scenic picture. This is Cobh as seen from Spike Island #cobh #countycork #spikeisland #ireland🍀 #irishsummer

#cobh cathedral looking great from #spikeislandcork #fortressspike #cork #munster #ireland #irelandsancienteast

#cobh #beaut #roadtrip