Spike Island After Dark presents Conviction by Dean Jacob
When darkness falls,
the island’s past comes to life…
Brave the dark this Halloween as Spike Island After Dark returns with a chilling new experience created exclusively for adults.
Your night begins with a special guided journey into the hidden corners of Ireland’s infamous prison island. Led by one of our expert guides, you’ll explore eerie prison corridors, descend into dark underground tunnels and uncover unsettling stories from Spike Island’s past in places rarely experienced after nightfall.
But your journey into the darkness does not end there.
The experience culminates in Conviction, a brand-new live show from renowned mentalist and escape artist Dean Jacob.
Through mind-bending illusions, thrilling escapes and haunting encounters, Dean will draw you into a world where perception cannot be trusted and every choice has consequences.
Prepare to be captivated, unsettled and amazed as you witness the seemingly impossible unfold before you.
Do you believe in free will?
Curiosity has consequences.
Combining Spike Island’s atmospheric surroundings, a specially created guided experience and a gripping live performance by Dean Jacob, Spike Island After Dark promises an unforgettable Halloween night unlike any other.
Tickets are limited. Book now – before the darkness closes in.
Please note: This event is strictly for guests aged 18 and over.
Back by popular demand, hear personal tales and local folklore of the hauntings of Spike Island.
Join us on Saturday August 22nd, where we will see if we can makecontactwiththeotherside.
“A genuinely atmospheric, unsettling location”
Walking through creepy abandoned cells, punishment block, and dark underground tunnels is a level of immersion that cannot be faked. Be ready for the low-lighting and sometimes pitch darkness of these centuries old areas of our fortress.
In the 19th century, Spike Island was one of the largest convict prisons in the world, often called “Ireland’s Hell,” with overcrowding and harsh conditions leading to many deaths.
From this era of solitary confinement and children’s prisons, to Spike’s use as a modern prison up until 2004, you’re not just hearing old folklore from our guides – you’re getting stories spanning centuries.
Our guides will recount the paranormalstoriesandsightings, passed down by our former island residents and staff.
There are no actors or jump scares. Any fear you feel on the night comes from atmosphere, darkness, and what you imagine – which for most people is far more unsettling. You’ll feel cut off from the world on our island which can only be accessed by taking out ferry across Cork harbour.
Over 16’s only, not suitable for younger children.
Culture Night at Spike Island will feature a screening of Mná na DXP, a powerful 14-minute documentary marking 30 years of the Dillon’s Cross Project (DXP), a Cork City education centre supporting women whose lives have been affected by the incarceration of loved ones within the Irish prison system.
Through the women’s own voices, Mná na DXP reflects on resilience, friendship and the strong sense of belonging fostered through the Dillon’s Cross Project over the past three decades.
The documentary was directed by Cork-based printmaker and visual artist Paul La Rocque. As a teacher with the Dillon’s Cross Project, Paul brings a unique insight and perspective to the film.
The event will begin with an introduction exploring the development of the documentary and the collaborative process behind its creation, followed by a short Q&A before the screening.
After the film, women from the Dillon’s Cross Project will share their personal experiences, reflecting on the impact the project has had on their lives, their families and their community.
Title: Mná na DXP Director: Paul La Rocque Editing and Music: Caoilian Sherlock Graphics: Aoife La Rocque Duration: 14 minutes
Date: Friday, 18 September Time: 5 – 7 pm Venue: Mitchel Hall and C-Class Cells at Spike Island
This piece was inspired by words by Max Porter, written for an exhibition at the Boole Library as part of the Lifelong Learning Festival. His text reflects on apology as a complex and open question: who we apologise to, who we seek apology from, whether forgiveness is necessary, and how these acts might extend beyond the human to society, history, and the natural world.
The Dillon’s Cross Project was invited to exhibitWe Are All in the Same Boatfor three weeks as part of this programme. At the centre of the installation was an “apology box,” inviting participants to respond through words and stitch—offering reflections, confessions, memories, and gestures of care.
These contributions were gathered into bunting that formed part of a larger installation. The sail incorporated writings and drawings created by the women involved, and in some cases by their children and grandchildren. Many responses drew inspiration from the sea—its movement, colour, and shifting moods—becoming a shared language for emotion, resilience, and change.
Since September 2023, the project has been developed in collaboration with Sounds from a Safe Harbour and Max Porter, exploring storytelling, belonging, healing, and collective care. The women also facilitated a workshop at University College Cork, where participants were invited to write or stitch an apology, creating a shared space for reflection and connection.
At its core, the work considers how people hold one another through vulnerability. It suggests that creativity—through writing, stitching, making, or listening—can become a form of repair and understanding.
We Are All in the Same Boatreflects the empathy within the group, where shared experience fosters connection and care. It reminds us that, at some level, we are all navigating the same conditions.
Here, apology is understood not only as regret, but as offering: a bridge, a recognition, and an act of collective care.
The current cultural climate is intensified within the prison environment, where issues such as addiction, housing instability, family breakdown, and mental health challenges frequently intersect. These overlapping pressures create complex conditions that shape daily life for prisoners while also increasing the demands placed on those supporting rehabilitation and reintegration into society.
The 2026 project brings together mapmaking and mask fabrication as a way of exploring prisoners’ memories and lived experiences of people and places. Working across ceramics, textiles, and pyrography, and drawing inspiration from artists such as Louise Bourgeois, Paula Rego, and Grayson Perry, the works engage with historic maps of Cork city and contemporary craft-based figuration.
The resulting characters operate as playful and often comedic expressions of escapism and imagination, developed through energetic and expressive mark-making. While deliberately exaggerated and absurd, they carry a strong sense of humour and inventiveness. Together, they reflect the resourcefulness and creativity that emerge within shared prison environments, offering a grounded interpretation of artistic expression under constraint.
These artworks respond to the layered and imagined history of Spike Island from the 1780s onwards, exploring themes of arrival, loss, confinement, and communication across time. Developed in collaboration with the Spike Island curator, the project drew on stories, historical accounts, and imagery from the island’s collection, providing a rich foundation for reflection and creative interpretation.
Structured as a visual narrative, the three paintings trace an emotional and historical journey.
The Arrivalcaptures the first encounter with the island—a crossing marked by uncertainty, transition, and the beginning of imprisonment.
The Funeralforms the emotional centre of the work. Rather than depicting a single death, it represents a collective act of mourning, reflecting on absence, anonymity, and the lasting impact of incarceration across generations.
The Messageturns outward, exploring memory, communication, and the desire to be heard beyond the prison walls. It speaks to connection, legacy, and the possibility of hope.
The programme explores broader conversations around interpretation, storytelling, and visual language. Participants consider larger questions such as the role of a gallery, whose histories are preserved, and how artworks are selected, curated, and presented. These discussions are supported by practical exercises in curation and exhibition-making.
By bringing the Crawford Art Gallery into the prison classroom, Beyond The Frame aims to connect incarcerated individuals with the world of art and culture. The programme encourages reflection, dialogue, creativity, and confidence, presenting art not as something distant or exclusive, but as a living practice through which personal experiences, historical perspectives, and shared meanings can be expressed.
Throughout the programme, participants have created a diverse body of individual artworks, responding to themes through their own experiences, perspectives, and visual voices.
Altered Images is a group exhibition from the CETB Education Unit in Cork Prison.
It brings together four elements of work developed across different classes and collaborative projects.
The exhibition is on view in the former prison cells at Spike Island.
Each room tells its own story, revealing the diversity of education within the prison. Every year, the CETB Education Unit in Cork Prison is proud to share the wide range of work created in partnership with Spike Island and other cultural collaborators.
We hope you enjoy the experience as much as we enjoyed the journey.
Back by popular demand!
We’re delighted to announce the return of our Spike Island 5km Race. Lace up your running shoes and join us on Saturday 12th September for an unforgettable run on Ireland’s infamous prison island.
This unique event promises an adventure like no other – where else can you begin your race within the walls of a 200-year-old fortress before making your way around an iconic island surrounded by spectacular views of Cork Harbour?
New in 2026, we are using a chip timing system to give you the most accurate timings possible, available online for you to see soon after the event has finished.
The race kicks off at approximately 5:25 p.m., promising an adrenaline-fueled dash through the island’s scenic routes. Our dedicated marshals will be on hand to guide you and ensure you stay on track throughout.
After crossing the finish line, each participant will receive a special Spike Island medal and there will be a special medal ceremony to celebrate your triumphs, with awards for the fastest male and female runners.
So what are you waiting for? Embrace the challenge and create lasting memories at Spike Island. Boats depart from Cobh at 4pm and 4:45pm and spaces are limited for this unique race event.
Gill Perdue, Mary Watson & Sam Blake with Amy Jordan
Listen in as three international bestsellers and masters of misdirection, Sam Blake, Mary Watson & Gill Perdue chat to Amy Jordan about what drives the kind of stories that live with their readers long after they’ve turned the last page.
Reading
Cormac Quinn
Join new debut crime writer Cormac Quinn in the punishment block for an intimate reading from his new book, Murder on Lough Derg.
From Fact to Fiction
Edel Coffey & Claire Coughlan with Michelle Dunne
Join journalists Edel Coffey and Claire Coughlan as they tell Michelle Dunne all about their transition from real life, to crime fiction and whether or not they ever bleed into one.
Gill Perdue
Gill Perdue is the author of bestselling novels If I Tell (nominated for Crime Novel of the Year in the Irish Book Awards 2022), When They See Me (2023) and in 2025 The Night I Killed Him, her third in the Shaw & Darmody series.
Her first standalone crime thriller All Of Them Lied publishes in June 2026 and has already been described by Liz Nugent as ‘the most compulsive reading experience I’ve had this year,’ and ‘unrelentingly tense,’ by Jane Casey.
Gill lives in Dublin with her hiking husband and rescue cat (aka last remaining pet), Dusty.
Mary Watson
Mary Watson is from South Africa and now lives on the west coast of Ireland. She has a PhD from the University of Cape Town, where she taught for many years.
She won the Caine Prize for African Writing for her adult publishing in South Africa, and in 2014 was named on the Africa39 list of writers under 40 with the potential to define trends in African literature.
Her YA novels have been nominated for the Irish Book Awards and the Carnegie medal. Her adult debut, The Cleaner, was a bestseller in Ireland, the UK and Canada.
Sam Blake
Sam Blake is a pseudonym for Vanessa Fox O’Loughlin, the founder of Europe’s biggest writing resources website, the award winning writing.ie, the Writers Ink online writing group and Murder One, Ireland’s International Crime Writing Festival.
She is a multiple No 1 bestselling Irish crime writer and has been shortlisted for Irish Crime Novel of the Year four times, and twice for Irish Teen and YA Novel of the Year. Her second YA novel, Something’s About to Blow Up was Winner of the International Education Services Teen & YA Novel of the Year 2024. Her latest adult thriller is Your Every Move (January 2026). 15 Kill Lane is released January 2027.
Follow Sam on social @samblakebooks or find out more at www.samblakebooks.com, where you can join her Reader’s Club and receive her adult thriller High Pressure for free.
Amy Jordan
Amy Jordan is a crime writer from Cork. Writing as Amy Cronin, she published three books with Poolbeg Press, before moving to HQ, HarperCollins.
The Dark Hours, her international debut, was published in multiple territories, was reviewed by the New York Times, and was an instant Irish Times bestseller.
Amy’s next thriller, Lie Steal Kill, a follow-up to The Dark Hours, will be released in January 2027.
Keep up to date with Amy’s books at @amyjordanbooks on Instagram.
Cormac Quinn
Based in Dublin, Cormac Quinn is a debut author with a passion for the murder mystery genre.
At much too young an age, he started reading detective novels and has yet to stop.
In a previous life, he was a journalist and news editor in Asia.
Edel Coffey
Edel Coffey is an Irish author and journalist.
She has published three number-one bestselling novels.
Her debut novel, Breaking Point, won the An Post Irish Book Award for Crime Novel of the Year.
She is a regular contributor to The Irish Times and RTE Radio One.
Claire Coughlan
Claire Coughlan worked as a journalist before starting to write fiction.
She has an MFA in Creative Writing from UCD and is the author of two crime novels, Where They Lie and Among the Ruins, both published by Simon & Schuster UK.
Where They Lie was nominated for the Irish Independent Crime Fiction Book of the Year at the 2024 An Post Irish Book Awards. In the same year, Claire was selected by the An Post Irish Book Awards as part of its New Voices: Best New Irish Writers list.
She can be found on Instagram @claireelizabethco
Michelle Dunne
Michelle Dunne is the best selling author of 8 psychological thrillers, including international bestseller The Good Girl, voted one of the top ten books to be published in the Czech Republic in 2025, and her new release, Burning Secrets.
Michelle is the organiser and programmer of the Spike Island Literary Festival – a crime-themed festival set in Ireland’s very own Alcatraz. She is also festival manager at Dublin’s international crime writing festival, Murder One.
Walking through creepy abandoned cells, punishment block, and dark underground tunnels is a level of immersion that cannot be faked. Be ready for the low-lighting and sometimes pitch darkness of these centuries old areas of our fortress.
Culture Night at Spike Island will feature a screening of Mná na DXP, a powerful 14-minute documentary marking 30 years of the Dillon’s Cross Project (DXP), a Cork City education centre supporting women whose lives have been affected by the incarceration of loved ones within the Irish prison system.
After the film, women from the Dillon’s Cross Project will share their personal experiences, reflecting on the impact the project has had on their lives, their families and their community.
Gill Perdue
Mary Watson
Sam Blake
Amy Jordan
Cormac Quinn
Edel Coffey
Claire Coughlan
Michelle Dunne