Gaols, Ghosts, Garrisons and Gas-Masks

GAOLS, GHOSTS, GARRISONS AND GASMASKS

A PHOTOGRAPHIC EXPOSURE OF LIFE ON SPIKE ISLAND

by Fionnghuala Smith

Spike Island has a unique and specific history compared to the rest of Ireland.
It has had a British Military presence from 1779 to 1938 – a one hundred and fifty-nine-year span that has had to have a major influence on its residents and that of Cork Harbour over that period. From 1847 to 1883 it became a famine era prison but still had a garrison presence on the island during that time.

Even though Spike Island was a military establishment the resident children had a great freedom on the island and were able to play and wander anywhere they wanted. Spike was their world, and they were very much insulated from the outside – if they did travel it may be one day a week for a couple of hours to Cork city. Up on the War Department launches and back again a couple of hours later. Most children who were brought up on Spike Island never forgot their idyllic life there for the rest of their lives. Many who had to leave Spike and move to Cobh and elsewhere found it all very unsettling.

A terrible period happened for children when they put a prison there in 1847. Whence before and after the prison these children had the freedom of the island, now it became an island of incarceration, cruelty and devastation.

The exhibition tells some of these stories. Although all the stories are based on historical facts – like a good Hollywood movie certain embellishment and artistic license has been taken.

CHILD INCARCERATION IN A FAMINE ERA PRISON

David Doran at the age of 12, was the youngest boy to endure the prison system on Spike. He was incarcerated on April 5 th , 1849.

All prisoners were photographed using mirrors to show their profiles as well as the front of their faces and hands. hands in Victorian times were said to have distinguishing features, so they had to be put in front of the chest to be photographed. Showing their face, profile and hands in one photograph saved time and money by only using one photographic plate instead of four.

In 1854, the Act for the Better Care & Reformation of Youthful Offenders, came in.

One such “reform” that was introduced was the weighing scales. All prisoners were to be weighed and their weight recorded when they arrived and then weighed again when they were being released.

The CAROUSING AND SELF-MEDICATING DOCTOR

Dr Barra O’Donnabhain, a lecturer in archaeology at University College Cork, conducted excavations in the convict graveyard area on Spike Island from 2013 to 2018.

Analysis showed that part of a convict’s skull had been surgically removed, postmortem, by someone skilled in the procedure. The purpose was to examine the brain in an autopsy.

Dr O’Donnabhain concluded that the unauthorised operation was possibly performed by the only person skilled in the art of surgery – the prison doctor.

Dr O’Donnabhain theorised that the doctor was investigating the widely held belief of that period that criminal characteristics could be identified within the brain. This was based on the books and studies of an Italian scientist, Cesare Lombroso.

There were many deaths between 1847 and 1855 with TB also being rampant amongst these closely quartered men. There were up to 2,000 prisoners and just one prison doctor.

The doctor ran afoul of the authorities and was accused of being drunk on the job. He was under huge stress and admitted to medicating himself with opium and ether.

PERCY HARRISON FAWCETT

CAPTAIN Fawcett, with his wife, Nina, lived on Spike Island from 1903 to 1906. He was promoted to Major in 1905 and their second son, Brian, was born on the island in 1906.

With the Artillery Corps, Percy was also involved in various activities, including suspected espionage. This took him to many exotic locations such as Hong Kong, Malta and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) where he met his future wife, Nina.

He had become a member of the Royal Geographical Society in 1901 and became Chief Survey Commissioner for Bolivia. This also brought him to the border with Brazil and the Amazon forests.

After he left Spike Island, he made several trips to unknown territory in South America mapping its rainforests and rivers.

He became a full-time explorer in 1910 and went in search of the lost city of “Z”, located in the Mato Grosso region of Brazil. A film was made of his adventures in 2016 based on the book by David Grann.

By 1925, he had become famous as an explorer. It is rumoured that the Indiana Jones character, played by Harrison Ford, is based on Percy Fawcett. On April 20th, he departed with his son, Jack, and Jack’s friend Raleigh Rimel to Mato Grosso and disappeared, never to be seen again.

NINA FAWCETT AND HER THEODOLITE

Nina Agnes Fawcett (nee Paterson) was a judge’s daughter. She was born in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and educated in Scotland.

Nina learned how to use a theodolite. A theodolite was used as a precision instrument for measuring horizontal and vertical angles, mostly used in building
surveying.

She taught Percy how to use the theodolite. He would have used this kind of instrument when exploring in the Amazon rainforests.

In 1933 (eight years after disappearing) his theodolite compass was discovered near the camp of the Bakairi natives of Mato Grosso. This is now in Torquay Museum. The excellent condition of the compass led Nina to believe he was still alive.

THE FAWCETTS AND THE WORLD OF THE OCCULT

Spike Island’s dark and terrible prison history suited the Fawcett’s belief in the spiritual world. Throughout their married life, they conducted many seances in their own home to communicate with the dead. The seances were very frequent and made an impression on Nina, who would make detailed notes from the messages of the mediums.

Percy and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Author of the Sherlock Holmes books) were good friends and they had very similar views including on the world of the occult.

Conan Doyle said that the Professor Challenger character in his book, “The Lost World” was loosely based on Percy Fawcett. Just like Fawcett, Professor Challenger is “ambitious, furious, single-minded, extremely workaholic and intolerant”.

Even when Percy and her son went missing in the jungle, Nina claimed that she received telepathic messages from her husband as late as 1934 (nine years after his disappearance).

The Cork born medium and psychic, Geraldine Cummins, reported in 1936 that she was receiving mental messages from Fawcett. After four such messages, Fawcett fell silent until 1948, at which point he reported his own death!

THE ROYAL ARTILLERY and ROYAL GARRISON ARTILLERY ON SPIKE ISLAND

The Royal Artillery (RA) was organised into batteries (usually a grouping of four or six guns and the men that operated them), which were often grouped under the command of a brigade. RA would normally be under the headquarters of a Corps. Brigades of the RA were earlier known as Heavy Artillery Groups.

The original rank of the soldiers would be gunner.

From the latter half of the 19 th century, the fort was manned by elements of the RA (often artillery militia) and was periodically updated with new guns.

In 1899 the Royal Artillery divided into two distinct branches – field and garrison.

The Royal Artillery had a 60-year presence on Spike Island from 1878 until 1938.

During the Victorian period, 20,000-30,000 regular soldiers were deployed in Ireland at any one time for the “maintenance of civil order”.

GUNNER WALTER (LEN) TAYLOR

Gunner Walter (Len) Taylor of the Royal Garrison Artillery maintained a diary while stationed on Spike Island during 1919 and 1920.

He had a lively sense of humour as is evident from his notes and little poems about Spike Island.

“We have a church wherein we pray and sing the Green Hill Far Away,
All we, like sheep, have gone astray at Spike.
We would like to put some MPs here or drown the blighters off the pier – then we would have no one to fear at Spike.
Oh, would I but sling my hook from here in rapture, would my heart appear for thee, I could not shed a tear at Spike.”

THE GAUNT GUNNER AND OTHER GHOSTLY PRESENCES

There have been ghostly sightings during both the British and Irish occupation of the island.

There is a record of a British soldier firing at a phantom ghost, a figure in military uniform that has been reported several times, earning the nickname “The Gaunt Gunner”.

After the handover, an Irish soldier on duty saw a ghostly sighting of a soldier in British Military uniform and fired at him after calling out twice to identify himself. The Orderly Officer heard the shot and decided to keep watch with the sentry next time he was on Guard duty. An unidentified figure emerged. The officer discharged his firearm; however, the figure continued to advance and subsequently passed through the officer before disappearing.

Several employees on Spike Island have reported sensing an unusual “presence,” occasionally accompanied by a physical sensation such as a push or knock.

Breda Smith (nee Cusack) childhood recollections

Breda Smith was born and lived on Spike Island from 1929 to 1942. Her father, Daniel Cusack, worked as a civilian boatman with the War Department Transport Office Fleet.

The following three stories are shortened, edited versions of some of her childhood memories.

‘ten-shun’

The Spike Island children loved watching the troops being drilled by Sergeant Steve Bailey on the parade ground.

He would bark out his orders:

“On the right, quick march”
“About turn”
“Quick march”
“On the double”

Occasionally, when the parade was over and the soldiers had departed, Sergeant Bailey would come over to the watching children and organise them into a drill.

“TEN-SHUN” – he barked at them.
Yes, they really loved Sergeant Bailey.

MONSTERS

Breda was sent up to the fort from her home in Beach Cottages by her mother to buy some sugar in the canteen. Breda never used the path, always the grassy hill.

As she was walking back down, she heard a loud thumping sound. She looked up towards the fort gate and saw monsters with huge eyes and enormous noses rushing down the hill behind her. She ran and ran down the hill; eventually she fell and rolled down the hill and curled herself into a ball crying and petrified at the noise from these monsters. She kept her eyes tightly shut.

The thumping noise stopped, and she heard a voice saying quietly, “are you okay, kid?”. A soldier was kneeling by her, talking gently. She sat up and screamed – a monster was behind him, peering down at her. The soldier shouted at the monster to move away.

That was the first time Breda had seen a gas mask.

DEAD MEN KILL

Sergeant James Corcoran and his family lived next door to the Cusack’s at Beach Cottages. Indeed, Breda was engaged at the age of seven to his son, Jimmy, with a ring from a lucky bag purchased in the fort’s canteen!

Sergeant Corcoran had lots of stories to tell of his twenty years in the Royal Munster Fusiliers. One such story stayed with Breda for the rest of her life. After the First World War, Sergeant Corcoran’s battalion was sent to Russia to help the “White Russians” (*)

After one battle, Sergeant Corcoran and three of his men got lost in the cold, vast and snowy spaces of Russia.

They walked for two to three days and saw one of the little one-roomed cabins built to help weary and cold on-foot travellers. The cabins would have a fireplace, wood, and, under normal circumstances, tinned and dried food.

Four White Russian soldiers were dead in the cabin.

Priority was given to lighting a fire and collecting snow to heat water for a mug of tea. As the room warmed up, they all started to feel drowsy.

There was a loud bang–one of Sergeant Corcoran’s comrades slumped to the ground, his head a mass of blood, blown to bits, dead before he hit the ground.

One of the dead White Russians was in a sitting position against the wall when they arrived at the cabin, his rifle still at his shoulder. His body had thawed out. His finger had been on the trigger, so his body weight, as he fell forward, put pressure on his trigger finger.

The result: DEAD MEN KILL.

(*) A loose confederation of anti-Communist forces that fought against the Soviet Red Army in the Russian Civil War (1918-1921).

Fionnghuala Smith

Fionnghuala Smith has been a volunteer on Spike Island for nearly 3 years and is extensively researching the military history period 1883 to 1938.

This research has uncovered some fascinating and intriguing stories and history. Prior to Fionnghuala’s voluntary work she ran an Old Time Photography Studio – Cobh Pastimes in Cobh, Co. Cork. This was the only old-time photography studio in Ireland – a concept that is a thriving business in America and Canada. This entailed dressing up customers in various historically themed costumes and photographing them on sets and themed backdrops.

Fionnghuala retained some of her costumes from the business and Noel McCarthy, a member of staff on Spike Island, kindly lent some of his military uniforms for the photographic scenes. He also showed us his thespian talents by participating in the shoots.

This project is supported by Cork County Council’s Commemorations Committee

My thanks and gratitude to everyone who helped make this project happen:

The Spike Island Re-enactors
Shane Coleman
Anne-Marie Davidson
Anne Halligan
William Maloney
Freddie McCall
Noel McCarthy
Leo O’Mahony
Eamon Smith
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Alan O’Callaghan – Spike Island General Manager
Noel McCarthy – Spike Island
Spike Island Staff and Volunteers
Conor Nelligan – CCC Heritage Officer
Cork County Council’s Commemorations Committee
Mike Brown – Platform 3