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Title Too beautiful for thieves and pickpockets: a history of the Victorian convict prison on Spike Island Author(s) McCarthy, Cal; Ó Donnabháin, Barra Publication date 2016-05 Original citation McCarthy, C. and O'Donnabhain, B. (2016) Too beautiful for thieves and pickpockets: a history of the Victorian convict prison on Spike Island. Cork: Cork County Library. Type of publication Book Rights © Cal McCarthy and Barra O’Donnabhain 2016 Item downloaded http://hdl.handle.net/10468/2539 from Downloaded on 2017-02-12T11:10:31Z TOO BEAUTIFUL FOR THIEVES AND PICKPOCKETS A HISTORY OF THE VICTORIAN CONVICT PRISON ON SPIKE ISLAND i Cal McCarthy is the author of Cumann na mBan and the Irish Revolution (2007), Green, Blue and Grey: The Irish in the American Civil War (2009) and is co-author of The Wreck of the Neva: The Horrifying Fate of a Convict Ship and the Irish Women Aboard (2013). In 2005 he received his MPhil for a thesis entitled, ‘The 1918 General Election – The swing to Sinn Féin’. Cal has participated in numerous radio and television productions dealing with various aspects of 19th- and 20th-century Irish history. He has worked for the Department of Transport, the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht and is a former Secretary of the Council of National Cultural Institutions. He currently works for Cork County Council. Barra O’Donnabhain is a graduate of UCC and the University of Chicago. His publications include the edited volumes The Dead Tell Tales (2013) and Archaeological Approaches to Human Remains: Global Perspectives (2014). Barra has directed and collaborated on archaeological projects in a number of world areas. He began excavations at the 19th-century prison on Spike Island in 2012. He teaches in the Department of Archaeology at University College Cork and is on the Board of Directors of the Los Angeles- based Institute for Field Research. ii TOO BEAUTIFUL FOR THIEVES AND PICKPOCKETS A HISTORY OF THE VICTORIAN CONVICT PRISON ON SPIKE ISLAND Cal McCarthy & Barra O’Donnabhain iii First published 2016 by Cork County Library Carrigrohane Road, Cork, Ireland. Tel: +353 (0)21 4546499; Website: www.corkcoco.ie ISBN Paperback: 978-0-9929970-1-4 ISBN Hardback: 978-0-9929970-3-8 Copyright for text © Cal McCarthy and Barra O’Donnabhain 2016 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or utilised in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or in any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. First edition: 2016 Cover photograph: Con Brogan, National Monuments Service Edited by Rachel Pierce at Verba Editing House Designed and Printed in Ireland by Lettertec iv Dedication We dedicate this book to the volunteers and staff of today’s Spike Island in acknowledgement of their devotion to the island’s past, present and future. v vi Table of Contents A Note on the Book’s Title ix A Note on Primary Sources ix A Note on the Name of the Prison xiv A Note on Images xiv Introduction: Spike Island, History and Legend 4 1. Crimes and Convictions 6 2. The First Convicts 16 3. The Geography of a Prison 25 4. In Mitchel’s Time 37 5. The Prison Staff 55 6. Expansion and Escapes 69 7. The Infamous William Burke Kirwan 94 8. Change and Reorganisation 109 9. Accusations and Machinations 125 10. The Murder of Warder William Reddy 146 11. Close Confinement and the Punishment Block 170 12. Clerics, Convicts and Teachers 185 13. The Killer Gentlemen 219 14. Haulbowline 230 vii 15. The Doctor and the Directors 249 16. Ribbonmen and Whiteboys 279 17. Fenians 296 18. The End of the Convict Era 322 Index 338 viii A NOTE ON THE BOOK’S TITLE The title of this book is taken from the words of Rev. Gibson: ‘The inhabitants of the beautiful villas around the harbour, and on the River Lee, are as free from the intrusion of the convicts of Spike as they are from those of Norfolk Island. Indeed, I know but one objection to Spike Island as a convict depot - and it is a sentimental one. The site and situation appear too beautiful for such a set of thieves and pickpockets as we have congregated there.’ Reverend Charles Bernard Gibson, Presbyterian Chaplain on Spike Island, 1856–1863. A NOTE ON PRIMARY SOURCES Our source material is referred to in the footnotes at the end of each page. We are aware that some readers find that footnotes tend to interrupt, clutter and fragment the narrative. We are equally aware, however, that some will find the process of turning pages to check each source intensely irritating. We hope that those readers of the former category will forgive our accommodation of the latter, try to ignore the footnotes and continue with the main narrative as they desire. The following is a note of all the major primary source material consulted during research of this text. Such material is listed in order of the archive or repository in which it may be accessed and all relevant acronyms are explained. NAI – National Archives of Ireland CSORP – Chief Secretary’s Registered Papers: these are the original letters of the various arms of government (civil service) that formed the Chief Secretary’s Office. Each piece of correspondence was given a unique number and entered in the correspondence index of the year in which it was received. Consequently, each reference beginning with CSORP will next refer to the year from which it dates (mostly 1847–1883 in this text) and, finally, will quote the unique identifier number. Some of the earlier numbers will be preceded by a letter. These letters refer to the category of the correspondence. As an example, NAI, CSORP/1847/G9844 refers to the 9,844th piece ix TOO B EAU T IFUL F OR T HIEVES A ND P ICK P OCKE T S of correspondence registered during 1847 in Category G of the Chief Secretary’s Registered Papers. Where no letter identifies a category, the correspondence comes from a year when no categories were created. The number referred to here may not be the call number that will produce the document in the NAI. This is because most pieces of correspondence were subsequently attached to others and, over time, formed a file. Consequently, G9844 may have been attached to G10451, which may have been attached to H7542, which may not have been attached to any other papers. In that case the call number CSORP/1847/H7542 will produce the document. One can trace the subsequent correspondence to which any of these pieces of correspondence were attached by referring to the CSORP indexes in the NAI. OP – Official Papers: the Official Papers are the papers of the Chief Secretary that were not recorded among the registered papers. They were filed in a similar manner to the registered papers, by year and individual correspondence number. However, as the collection is smaller, the individual correspondence number will usually be identical to the call number used by the NAI. GPO – General Prisons Office: records which once belonged to the General Prisons Office. This text refers to two categories of such records: LB – Letter Books, into which outgoing correspondence was copied; XB – Minute Books, recording the details of internal meetings. Call numbers should include the number of the book, which is the first number quoted after the LB or XB prefix. The final number within these references refers to the piece of correspondence within the individual book. GPB – General Prisons Board: records which once belonged to the General Prisons Board, the successor to the General Prisons Office. This text refers to two categories of such records: LB – Letter Books, into which outgoing correspondence was copied; MB – Minute Books, recording details of internal meetings. Call numbers should include the number of the book, which is the first number quoted after the LB or MB prefix. The final number within these references refers to the piece of correspondence within the individual book. OPW – Office of Public Works: records which once belonged to the OPW. x N OTES CON/LB – Chief Secretary’s Correspondence Letter Books, into which outgoing correspondence was copied. TR – Transportation Register: records details of many of the convicts transported to the colonies we now know as Australia. CRF – Convict Reference Files: these files were generated by correspondence regarding some specific convicts – usually appeals of their sentences. NLI – National Library of Ireland Most of the newspapers referred to within this text are available for consultation at NLI, online via various subscription sites or online at www.irishnewspaperarchives. ie, which can be accessed at most county libraries. Published Primary Documents Gibson, Rev. Charles Bernard. 1864. An Irish Convict in the Federal Army. In: Once a Week, 27 August 1864. Gibson, Rev. C.B. 1863. Irish Convict Reform: The intermediate prisons, a mistake. Dublin: McGlashin and Gill. Gibson, Rev. C.B. 1863. Life Among Convicts, Vols I and II. London: Hurst and Blackett. Mitchel, J. 1982. Jail Journal. Dublin: University Press of Ireland. Von Holtzendorff, Baron Franz. 1860. The Irish Convict System: More Especially Intermediate Prisons. Dublin: W.B. Kelly. Von Holtzendorff, Baron Franz. 1863. Reflections and observations on the present condition of the Irish convict system. Dublin: J.M. O’Toole and Son. Manuscripts MS 3016, Convict register of an Irish prison (Spike Island Government Prison?) giving detailed particulars of prisoners, including many transported to Bermuda, Van Diemen’s Land and Gibraltar, 1849–1850. xi TOO B EAU T IFUL F OR T HIEVES A ND P ICK P OCKE T S PRO – Public Record Office The Public Record Office is one of four bodies amalgamated to form the National Archives (United Kingdom).