FORMER SPIKE ISLAND RESIDENT STARS IN AMAZON PRIME RELEASE

World famous adventurer and former Cork resident now showing on streaming platform Amazon prime”

A former Spike Island resident who received the Hollywood treatment is now streaming on Amazon prime.  The film ‘The Lost City of Z’ tells the story of Percy Fawcett, a soldier, spy and adventurer who gained fame in his lifetime as an Amazon explorer.  Starring Charlie Hunnam, Robert Pattinson and Sienna Miller, the movie tells how the former soldier became obsessed with finding El Dorado, the Lost city of gold in the Amazon jungle. 

Originally from Devon, Fawcett served as a spy in North Africa and with the artillery corps in Sri Lanka.  He came to Spike Island as an intelligence officer in 1903 and his second son was born on the island during his 3 years in Cork.  While on the island Fawcett carried out séances with his wife and friends, bringing spirituals and mediums to the island to try and speak to long dead relatives and personalities.  The call of adventure eventually meant he left the island in 1906 having accepted an invitation to go to South America on a surveying mission.  This was the first of over 20 visits to the unexplored jungles of Bolivia, Brazil and Argentina and he developed an obsession with finding a lost city.  Fawcett had found ancient documents that told of a great city lost in the jungle and during one of his séance sessions, the medium told him he would find such a lost city.  When Machu Picchu was discovered in the jungles of Peru in 1911 this only convinced Fawcett further that such lost civilisations existed. 

After serving in World War one he campaigned for funding to return, earning American backers and world fame for his repeated exploits.  He would eventually disappear without a trace during an expedition with his eldest son Jack and a family friend in 1925, never to be seen again.  Several unsuccessful rescue attempts were mounted and his disappearance was one of the great mysteries of the 20^th century.  Fawcett would go on to inspire the Indiana Jones character, with his distinctive hat spotted by creator George Lucas as appeared in 1930’s adventure film serials.  Fawcett was also the inspiration for the bestselling book ‘The Lost World’ having met the author Arthur Conan Doyle on several occasions. 

He is among many famous visitors to Spike Island over the years, including Winston Churchill in 1911and Eamonn De Valera in 1938.  The island was used as a 6^th century monastery and an 18^th century Fortress before the famine years saw it become the world’s largest prison in the 1850’s.  Over 2300 men, women and children were crammed into its cells and there has never been a bigger prison in Britain or Ireland before or since.  The island has also been an island home for centuries and was occupied by the British and Irish army and Navy.   

The island attraction hopes to reopen to visitors in July as the government eases restrictions on travel, although social distancing guidelines are likely to mean demand exceeds space to travel to the award winning island.  Early booking is advised.