In which wax prisoners lurk within the walls of Spike Island and the surrounding land reclaims the rubble.
Spike Island has a colourful history. As early as the 7th century, it was home to a monastic settlement, has supposedly been used by smugglers, was the location of artilleries and fortifications due to its strategic location in Cork Harbour, and had a star-shaped fort built on its peak which was eventually used as a prison and convict depot. It now serves only as a historical tourist attraction, a ferry from the town of Cobh taking you across the short channel between.
Ascending the small hill from the pier, on top of which perches the fort, you pass a collection of run down buildings that used to house the families of the military. The fort itself has also been left to the ravages of time, giving the place an eerie, abandoned quality. You venture into one of the catacomb-like passages that are still open to the public, and glance into the gloomy cells, occupied by wax figures depicting the convicts who were once imprisoned here. The dry, almost clinical descriptions of the living conditions, read from plaques affixed nearby, sit in stark contrast to their anguished, pallid faces, leaping over the uncanny valley into a twisted exaggeration of human misery.
Circumambulating the island's rim, the softly swaying grass and silent structures—garnished with moss and ivy—betray no evidence of the lives, deaths and experiences of the many individuals who are part of it's history. The grim cells and towering fortress walls might well have sprung from the ground like the rocks and trees that surround them, rather than by human hands for a wretched purpose. It's seems poignant that this simple mound of earth has held both a monastery and a prison, as these are places of seclusion and isolation; the only difference being the one who is inflicting it, the self or the other.
