A new book on Spike Island reveals, in the Victorian era, it was the biggest prison in the whole of Ireland and the British Isles.

A documentary series which gives a unique insight into the brutal regime on what was once one of Europe’s largest penal colonies will premiere on irishexaminer.com today.

Archaeologists have identified for the first time the full extent of a convicts’ mass grave on what was once a notorious concentration camp-style prison in Cork harbour.

Eoin English and Sean O’Riordan