One woman is revealing the stories of convicts, settlers buried on the Isle of the Dead

ABC News reporter Liz Quinn made this three-minute story in October 2021 at the Isle of the Dead, the small island in the harbour at Port Arthur that served as the penal settlement’s burial ground. ABC says about a thousand people lie there — convicts, free settlers, women and children — and the island is one of the most popular stops for visitors, including the night-time ghost tours.

The report explains why that popularity became a problem. For decades walking paths ran across unmarked graves, and the oils from people’s hands were speeding up the erosion of the headstones. A five-year conservation project costing $1.3 million had just been completed, with prefabricated walkways flown in by helicopter and new raised paths that also make the island accessible to people using mobility aids. The site’s staff speak about the people behind every stone, and the story ends with the financial blow that COVID-19 border closures dealt to the site’s conservation fund.

Ghost lore is only mentioned in passing here, but the report is a reminder of what sits underneath Port Arthur’s ghost tours: real graves of people who were transported, punished and buried far from home between the 1830s and 1877, when the settlement closed. Most of them are unmarked. Of the roughly 1,000 graves thought to be on the island, only about 180 — those of prison staff and military personnel — carry headstones; convicts were buried without them.

Port Arthur Historic Site runs its own ghost tours, and staff trace the site’s recorded ghost stories back to around 1870. This report shows the other side of that business: the care that goes into keeping the place intact for the people who come to hear those stories.