Shackleton Autumn School 2011

October Bank Holiday weekend has for the past 11 years meant one thing only – the Shackleton Autumn School.  It might seem a fancy sounding name for an event which started off as a local one but which in a few years has become a truly international event.  Not only that, it has become the foremost Polar event of its kind anywhere in the world.

Each year we have welcomed visitors from abroad to the Athy event – visitors who have returned year after year, such is the welcome they receive and the quality of lectures put on in our early 18^th century Town Hall.

Where once rebels and ordinary run of the mill criminals stood in the dock awaiting sentence is now the venue for lectures and discussions on Polar matters, with particular reference to the Antarctic and Ernest Shackleton. 

I recall a whiff of cordite a year or so ago when a letter writer to the local newspaper questioned why Shackleton, a man whose allegiance it was claimed belonged to our neighbouring island should be honoured in the South Kildare town of Athy.  The answer of course lies in the fact that Shackleton was born just a few miles outside Athy and it was in Kilkea that he spent his early formative years.  Shackleton is just one of the many local persons whom the Heritage Centre has chosen to honour over the years and in his case develop an annual conference which draws visitors to our town.

The part played by our Heritage Centre in opening up previously hidden elements of the town’s story is commendable.  Apart from Shackleton, the Gordon Bennett Race, the townspeople’s involvement in the First World War and the Irish War of Independence have all featured in exhibitions or lectures which have brought our local history to a new generation. 

The extraordinary wealth of talent and expertise which the 2011 Autumn Shackleton School will feature includes Pulitzer Prize winner Edward Larson.  His talk titled ‘Did Shackleton care about Science?” takes place on Sunday 30^th October at 12 noon.  The full programme of events starts on Friday 28^th October at 7.30 p.m. and features no less than three book launches over the weekend.  It’s a measure of the school’s success that three different publishers sought to avail of the Shackleton School to launch new books.  Two of those publishers are based in England, a clear indication of the importance of the Shackleton School in the world of Polar study.

On Friday evening the Norwegian Ambassador to Ireland will open the Shackleton Autumn School at 7.30 p.m.  He was invited to do so because this year we have for the weekend only a very important exhibition which was developed by the Fram Museum in Oslo.  The exhibition showcases images from the lantern slides of Roald Amundsen which Amundsen used for his lectures following his expeditions through the North West Passage and to the South Pole.  The exhibition which will particularly emphasise his expedition to the South Pole is complimented by Amundsen’s material from a number of private collections.  The importance of this exhibition, which will be in Athy for the Shackleton weekend only, can be gauged from the fact that it will next appear in Ireland’s National Museum in Collins Barracks Dublin. 

The lecturers this year come from England, Norway, Ireland, United States and the Falklands Islands, giving a geographical spread which is quite impressive.  There are six lecturers in all, together with three book launches and a showing on Sunday afternoon of the film ‘The Great White Silence’.  Made by Herbert Ponting of Captain Scott’s last expedition to the South Pole in 1911, the film restored by the British Film Institute brings the Antarctic landscape to life in brilliant detail.  It will be introduced by Luke McKernan who is the Lead curator of Moving Image at the British Library.

On Sunday evening at 9.00 p.m. in the Arts Centre, Woodstock Street, Donal O’Kelly will present his one man show.  “Catalpa” is the true story of the whale ship rescue of six Irish convicts from Freemantle penal colony in 1876 whose escape was masterminded by Kildare born Fenian John Devoy.  It should be of particular interest to Athy folk as John Devoy’s ancestors came from Athy and indeed his grand uncle Michael Devoy wrote an early interesting history of the town which was included in the Irish Magazine of March 1809. 

The Shackleton Autumn School is one of the great success stories of Athy’s recent history and we should be extremely proud of the important place it has earned for itself in the world of Polar studies.  The Friday official opening is at 7.30 p.m. and everyone is welcome to come along to the Heritage Centre that evening.

Athy Senior Footballers Success

Sporting success is an important stimulus for any local community and nowhere was that more apparent than following last Sunday’s football final between Athy and Carbury.  The excitement in Athy prior to the final was palpable and the spread of red and white flags throughout the town gave visible expression to the pride we all felt in our local team. 

Everyone was elated by the team’s success and one can scarcely imagine the uplifting effect victory had on the people of Athy.  It was quite obvious that the sporting success had managed to lift the mood of an entire town banishing, even if only for a short spell, the thoughts of recession, NAMA and bankers madness. 

This was a club success, but equally it was a community success, earned as it was by men, young and not so young, with roots extending back generations in the local community.  Young James Eaton, whose early goal laid the foundation for the team’s win, is the grandson of James Eaton who in his young days, while working in Jacksons of Leinster Street, also played for the Club.

Another man involved in the winning team was Ger Clancy, whose father played for Athy.  Ger was a selector on the winning senior team, a role which he also filled on the minor and Under 21 championship winning teams of recent years.  Uniquely Ger is himself the holder of Kildare Championship winning medals at minor, Under 21 and senior level, the latter having been won in 1987 when he lined out at right full back on the Athy team.

The involvement of local families with Athy’s G.A.A. club and Sunday’s winning senior team is evident in so many ways.  Another senior selector, Dinny Sullivan, played on the Athy team which lost the 1978 final to Raheens and he, like Ger, also served as selector on previous minor and Under 21 Championship winning teams.  His brother Anthony is currently President of the Athy Gaelic Football Club.  Club Secretary Colm Reynolds is the proud father of Man of the Match winner Cian. 

Another past Club President, whom I had the honour of proposing for that position many years ago, was the late Tim O’Sullivan, a Kerry man whose adult life was spent in Athy.  His grandson Hugh Mahon came on as a substitute in the second half of Sunday’s final.

As one looks down the generations it is not surprising to find a continuity of service and allegiance to the local G.A.A. Club.  One household now holding five Kildare Senior Championship medals is the Dunnes of Ashville.  Patrick Dunne has just won his first Senior Championship medal, but at home there are four similar medals won by his grand uncle Barney Dunne in the late 1930s and 1940s. 

The late Tommy Brophy who was a neighbour of mine in Offaly Street in the 1950s was a hurling man through and through.  His son Mark who was on the 1995 losing Athy final team panel is the manager of the 2011 senior winning team, having fulfilled the same role so successfully with Athy minors.  Mark’s brother Ken played in Sunday’s final, as did Emmanuel Kennedy, both of whom are the last survivors of the 1995 losing final team.  Ken and Emmanuel have been tremendous servants of the Club over many years.

Comparison between this year’s successful championship campaign and Athy’s success in 1942 when we also beat Carbury shows that both victories were achieved by very young teams.  Sixty nine years ago the Athy team which deprived Carbury of a third in a row senior title was comprised of 7 players under 22 years of age and one player under 18.  Those ‘youngsters’ as they were referred to in the 1942 press reports included Danny Shaughnessy, Tommy Fox and Lar Murray. 

Another link with the past was the inclusion on this year’s team panel of Aongus Corry, a former County Clare minor and the holder of a Clare Senior Championship medal.  His inclusion brought back memories of another Clare man, George Comerford, who played for Athy in the 1937 Senior Football Final when Athy won its third senior title in five years.  George was a Garda based in Athy who not only played football for the Clare County Senior team, but also for Munster and Leinster.  In addition he played inter county football for Kildare and Louth and was on the losing Dublin team in the All-Ireland Final of 1934.  The late Pat Mulhall regarded George Comerford as the finest footballer ever to have played with Athy.

The story of Athy’s success in the Kildare County Final of 2011 is a story of a community whose spirits were lifted by the skill, panache and energy of 15 and more young men.  We rejoice in their success and for a while our spirits were lifted and the whole town, not for the first time and hopefully not the last, enjoyed its position as the premier sporting centre in the County of Kildare.

Athy Camogie Club and Lily Bowden

Kilkenny had Angela and Ann Downey – Athy has Lily Bowden, Gemma Martin and Breda Wall.  Camogie players par excellence, Lily comes from Mullaghmast, Breda from Athy, while Gemma who has lived in Athy since she was 10 years old, comes from the Ards Peninsula in County Down.  All three hold the unique distinction of winning camogie championship medals 25 years apart.  Lily captained the Athy camogie team to win a Junior Championship Final in 1986 and with her on that team were Gemma and Breda.  All three girls featured in the build up to this year’s Junior Final which saw Athy beat arch rivals and near neighbours St. Laurences. 

The game of camogie goes back a long way in Athy, the first all girls team from the town having made an appearance as early as 1909.  A Miss Campbell was the club captain, while administrative duties of club secretary were undertaken by a Miss Tierney.  By 1935 two Athy Clubs, St. Patricks and Clan Bridge were represented at that year’s County Camogie convention.  Five years later, as the war against Hitler was entering its second year, Athy Camogie Club won its first junior title.  That victory was achieved after Athy defeated Ballitore in a replay of the County Final on Joseph Masterson’s waterlogged field in Kilmead. 

Athy Camogie Club went into decline soon thereafter and remained inactive until revived in or around 1953.  The following year Sean Healy of Athy was elected Chairperson of the Kildare County Camogie Board and the Vice Chairperson was another Athy Club delegate Sheila Hughes. 

The Athy Club’s second trophy came with success in the 1974 Junior League which was followed twelve years later with another Junior Championship title under team trainer Michael Kelleher.  Captain on that day was Lily Bowden and included on the twelve woman team were Gemma Martin and Breda Wall.  All three played a part in this year’s successful Junior Championship and only injury deprived Gemma Martin of the opportunity to join her two colleagues of 25 years ago in the long awaited victory.

The success of the Athy team is intrinsically linked with Scoil Mhichil Naofa, the primary school where both Lily Bowden and Gemma Martin work as Special Needs Assistants and where in 1996 Lily started to give camogie classes to the young pupils.  Practice games were played on the nearby Clonmullin pitch and many of those who learned their hurling skills in Scoil Mhichil Naofa were involved in this year’s camogie final.  These included Ruth Crowley, Shauna Moran, Ellen Clancy, Jessica Martin, Katie Moylan and Emer Garry.  The same school had no less than seven of its teachers on the 2011 final team, including sisters Alva and Emer McManus, Emma Lalor, Evelyn Crowley, Emer Haverty, Georgina Maher and Gillian Loughman. 

I was intrigued to find two mother and daughter combinations involved with the team.  Lily Bowden and her daughter Laura, who is not yet 16 years of age, played in some early matches, but the youngster could not participate in a championship proper as she had not reached the minimum playing age of 16 years.  Gemma Martin was joined by her daughter Jessica.  The Ards Peninsula native, whose County Down parish team of Ballycran, produced over the years many good hurlers, brought an energy and a passion to her hurling which was typical of the determined team which represented Athy in the Junior Final against St. Laurences. 

There is great rivalry between Athy and near neighbours St. Laurences and Gemma’s husband Eddie, who is a former Larries footballer, must have had mixed feelings as he watched his wife’s and daughter’s team overcome his beloved St. Laurences on the score of 2-3 to 1-3.  Despite their keen rivalry the good relationship between the two local clubs is evident at mens junior hurling level where several former Athy hurlers in the absence of an Athy team were part of the St. Laurences team which won the Junior A Hurling Final last Sunday.  Not many can match Lily Bowden’s haul of camogie medals which includes not only two junior titles, won with Athy in 1986 and 2011, but also two junior medals, won in 2001 and 2006, with guess who? – St. Laurences.

Lily’s involvement with St. Laurences preceded the revival, yet again, of Athy’s Camogie Club in 2007 when the Club’s players, thanks to the help and cooperation of the local Rugby Club, were afforded match practice facilities at the Showgrounds.  The Club’s first trainer was Peter Barry and that role is now taken over by Colm Byrne.  Strangely the Camogie Club, like the local Hurling Club, are separate and distinct from the local Gaelic Football Club and so must sometimes seek help outside the Gaelic games code to be able to access match practice facilities.  That situation has improved over the last year and the beneficial results can be clearly seen in the success of Athy’s camogie team of Georgina Maher, Kathryn Hurley, Ruth Crowley, Glenda Bracken, Karen Cahill Foley, Emer Garry, Emma Lalor, Shauna Moran, Gillian Loughman, Lily Bowden, Alva McManus, Katie Moylan, Emer McManus, Evelyn Crowley, Maeve McManus, not forgetting the other players on the panel who all played their part in the Club’s success. 

Athy Camogie Club and Lily Bowden

Kilkenny had Angela and Ann Downey – Athy has Lily Bowden, Gemma Martin and Breda Wall.  Camogie players par excellence, Lily comes from Mullaghmast, Breda from Athy, while Gemma who has lived in Athy since she was 10 years old, comes from the Ards Peninsula in County Down.  All three hold the unique distinction of winning camogie championship medals 25 years apart.  Lily captained the Athy camogie team to win a Junior Championship Final in 1986 and with her on that team were Gemma and Breda.  All three girls featured in the build up to this year’s Junior Final which saw Athy beat arch rivals and near neighbours St. Laurences. 

The game of camogie goes back a long way in Athy, the first all girls team from the town having made an appearance as early as 1909.  A Miss Campbell was the club captain, while administrative duties of club secretary were undertaken by a Miss Tierney.  By 1935 two Athy Clubs, St. Patricks and Clan Bridge were represented at that year’s County Camogie convention.  Five years later, as the war against Hitler was entering its second year, Athy Camogie Club won its first junior title.  That victory was achieved after Athy defeated Ballitore in a replay of the County Final on Joseph Masterson’s waterlogged field in Kilmead. 

Athy Camogie Club went into decline soon thereafter and remained inactive until revived in or around 1953.  The following year Sean Healy of Athy was elected Chairperson of the Kildare County Camogie Board and the Vice Chairperson was another Athy Club delegate Sheila Hughes. 

The Athy Club’s second trophy came with success in the 1974 Junior League which was followed twelve years later with another Junior Championship title under team trainer Michael Kelleher.  Captain on that day was Lily Bowden and included on the twelve woman team were Gemma Martin and Breda Wall.  All three played a part in this year’s successful Junior Championship and only injury deprived Gemma Martin of the opportunity to join her two colleagues of 25 years ago in the long awaited victory.

The success of the Athy team is intrinsically linked with Scoil Mhichil Naofa, the primary school where both Lily Bowden and Gemma Martin work as Special Needs Assistants and where in 1996 Lily started to give camogie classes to the young pupils.  Practice games were played on the nearby Clonmullin pitch and many of those who learned their hurling skills in Scoil Mhichil Naofa were involved in this year’s camogie final.  These included Ruth Crowley, Shauna Moran, Ellen Clancy, Jessica Martin, Katie Moylan and Emer Garry.  The same school had no less than seven of its teachers on the 2011 final team, including sisters Alva and Emer McManus, Emma Lalor, Evelyn Crowley, Emer Haverty, Georgina Maher and Gillian Loughman. 

I was intrigued to find two mother and daughter combinations involved with the team.  Lily Bowden and her daughter Laura, who is not yet 16 years of age, played in some early matches, but the youngster could not participate in a championship proper as she had not reached the minimum playing age of 16 years.  Gemma Martin was joined by her daughter Jessica.  The Ards Peninsula native, whose County Down parish team of Ballycran, produced over the years many good hurlers, brought an energy and a passion to her hurling which was typical of the determined team which represented Athy in the Junior Final against St. Laurences. 

There is great rivalry between Athy and near neighbours St. Laurences and Gemma’s husband Eddie, who is a former Larries footballer, must have had mixed feelings as he watched his wife’s and daughter’s team overcome his beloved St. Laurences on the score of 2-3 to 1-3.  Despite their keen rivalry the good relationship between the two local clubs is evident at mens junior hurling level where several former Athy hurlers in the absence of an Athy team were part of the St. Laurences team which won the Junior A Hurling Final last Sunday.  Not many can match Lily Bowden’s haul of camogie medals which includes not only two junior titles, won with Athy in 1986 and 2011, but also two junior medals, won in 2001 and 2006, with guess who? – St. Laurences.

Lily’s involvement with St. Laurences preceded the revival, yet again, of Athy’s Camogie Club in 2007 when the Club’s players, thanks to the help and cooperation of the local Rugby Club, were afforded match practice facilities at the Showgrounds.  The Club’s first trainer was Peter Barry and that role is now taken over by Colm Byrne.  Strangely the Camogie Club, like the local Hurling Club, are separate and distinct from the local Gaelic Football Club and so must sometimes seek help outside the Gaelic games code to be able to access match practice facilities.  That situation has improved over the last year and the beneficial results can be clearly seen in the success of Athy’s camogie team of Georgina Maher, Kathryn Hurley, Ruth Crowley, Glenda Bracken, Karen Cahill Foley, Emer Garry, Emma Lalor, Shauna Moran, Gillian Loughman, Lily Bowden, Alva McManus, Katie Moylan, Emer McManus, Evelyn Crowley, Maeve McManus, not forgetting the other players on the panel who all played their part in the Club’s success.