Ireland has its own mini-Alcatraz, and it nearly lost control of it in a huge riot. On the night of the 31st of August 1985, Cork’s notorious Spike Island Prison, perched grim and isolated in Cork Harbour, erupted into violence and fire. Within hours, much of it was reduced to ruins.

Spike Island was no ordinary prison. It housed over 100 young offenders, mostly from Dublin and Cork.These were rough and ready city lads aged 16 to 21, locked up for car theft, burglary, and violent crimes. Officially called Fort Mitchel, the island was a military relic hastily converted into a prison in the early 1980s. A decision that would come back to haunt the Department of Justice.

By the summer of '85,' the pressure in the overcrowded and underresourced penal colony was unbearable. Overcrowding, boredom, and frustration created a powder keg. There were just seven guards on duty that night, four of them trainee gardaí with less than a month’s experience, a reflection of how grossly and dangerously understaffed the facilitiy also was.

The spark came around 11.30pm in Dormitory 5A. Furniture scraped across floors. Beds and chairs smashed into pieces. Mattresses set alight. Before the officers could react, the doors were forced open from within. Fires broke out almost instantly across the complex. Prisoners armed themselves with makeshift weapons. What happened next was absolute chaos.

Prison officers tried to fight the fires with hoses, but they were overwhelmed. "Grown men cried and got sick with fear," said P.J. McEvoy, head of the Prison Officers’ Association. They ran for their lives, barricading themselves inside the gatehouse. Meanwhile, inmates now found themselves masters of the island. They revolted torching offices, destroyed prisoner records, looted clothing stores, and clambered onto the roofs to scream defiance into the Cork night air.

The prison’s phone lines were cut. Off-duty officers were summoned from the Commodore Hotel in Cobh. Terrified families living on the island were left clueless. There was no alarm system. They only learned of the horror when neighbours returned on the 1am ferry, wide-eyed and shaken. As the prison blazed, groups of inmates tied sheets into ropes and scaled the outer walls.

Nineteen young men escaped, making for the pier and hijacking boats to reach the mainland. A nationwide manhunt was launched. Some fugitives were caught quickly. Others vanished for weeks. By the next day, after tense negotiations, 70 prisoners who had seized the administration block roof surrendered. The island was back under control, but the damage was catastrophic.

Millions of pounds’ worth of destruction, burned-out buildings, and the loss of vital prison records. Army vehicles rumbled onto the island, floodlights set up amid the ruins. There was talk of mass transfers, possibly even to the Curragh military camp. Equally immense was the reputational damage for the governement.

The Department of Justice, caught flat-footed, faced searing public anger. The Prison Officers’ Association had warned them, even as recently as the Wednesday before the riot: "You don’t even have the weekend." But no action had been taken. According to the officers there were multiple systemic causes, which on that night came together.

Prisoners massively outnumbered staff and were able to organise. The prisoners went to bed fully dressed anticipating escape. The fires and violence broke out simultaneously in multiple blocks. This wasn’t random rage, or oppurtunism. This was planned.

Miraculously, despite the scale of the destruction and mayhem, not a single life was lost. But the legacy of that night was lasting. The Spike Island Riot exposed the rot at the heart of Ireland’s prison system. Within two decades, the prison was closed, its ruins repurposed as a museum. But some suggest our government should reopen the prison island again to house our most dangerous criminals.