Every October bank holiday weekend since 2001, Athy has welcomed
overseas visitors attending the Ernest Shackleton Autumn School. It has become an important event in the
town’s cultural calendar bringing business to our local hotel, B&B’s,
restaurants and shops. At the same time
it has given Athy an international profile it never previously enjoyed. The
town now enjoys a confirmed association with the Polar explorer Ernest
Shackleton, unacknowledged before the advent of the Ernest Shackleton Autumn
School in 2001. Indeed prior to the
setting up of the Heritage Centre media reporting on the Polar explorer invariably
referred to Kilkee, Co. Clare as his place of birth.
The Athy Heritage Museum is the focus for the events for the weekend
which will begin with the opening of the Autumn school at 7.30pm on Friday, 23rd
of October. The school will be
officially launched by Alexandra Shackleton, the granddaughter of Ernest
Shackleton. The exhibition to be
launched that night is “Life on the Line”.
The exhibition is the result of many years of work by the English
photographer, Christina Barnet who journeyed to the Arctic Circle to record the
rich diversity of peoples for whom the sun never sets in high summer nor rises
in deepest winter. The exhibition will
run in the Heritage Centre until early in the New Year and should not be
missed. The opening night will also
feature the launch of the Scottish author Anne Straithie's book 'From Ice Floes to battlefields'. This book examines the fates of the various
Polar explorers who served with both Scott and Shackleton during the Great
War. This is of particular relevance for
Athy given the many thousands of men who served in the British army in the Great
War, a war which touched every family in this town. A number of Irish men feature in the book
such as Tom Crean, Ernest Shackleton and Tim McCarthy. It is particularly pleasing to have an
opportunity to launch this book which has been published by the History
Press.
An important feature of the event has always been the diverse
experience of the invited lecturers and the lecture topics they have
chosen. This year sees lecturers drawn
from the United Kingdom, Spain, France, Norway, Canada and the U.S.A. Dr. Kevin McKenna, a Consultant in Belfast
City Hospital will give a talk on the effects of scurvy and its impact on Polar
exploration. Scurvy was a very invidious
disease which affected many of the early Polar explorers. It was caused by the lack of vitamin C and
Kevin’s lecture will be an intriguing mix of medicine and exploration. Another lecture which caught my attention is
that by Erik Seedhouse. Erik is an
Norwegian/Canadian suborbital astronaut who has published a book on the
striking parallels between the pioneering Polar explorers of the 20th
century and those future space explorers of the 22nd century who may
or may not get to Mars. His lecture is
one of the more unusual topics and it is clearly going to be an intriguing mix
of fact and speculation.
The world of business over the last two decades in the United States
has found many proponents of Shackleton’s leadership qualities and Dr. Jesus
Alcoba the Dean of La Salle
International Graduate School of Business in Madrid will be extrapolating from
the world of Polar exploration some lessons for us about success in
business. Other lecturers include Robert
Burton, Dr. Phillip Sidney, Naomi Boneham, Samuel Blanc and Anne Strathie.
Sunday afternoon will see the showing of the film “Antarctica - A
Year On Ice”, a documentary by the New Zealand film maker Anthony Powell which
was ten years in the making. It is a
wonderful record of the life and work of those hardy souls who over winter in
the Antarctic.
The climax of the weekend will be the premier performance in Athy’s
Dominican Church of 'Shackleton’s Endurance' on Sunday, 25th of
October. Commissioned by Athy Heritage
Centre- Museum with financial support from Kildare County Council, this was
first performed in Carlow’s George Bernard Shaw Theatre last year. Brian Hughes’s musical composition, John
MacKenna’s narrative and Craig Blackwell's visuals combine to tell the story of
Ernest Shackleton’s 1914 transantarctic expedition. They will be ably assisted on stage by
Kildare County Orchestra, Monasterevin Gospel Choir and a number of local
musicians. This event, with the
participation of so many local musicians, it is very much deserving of your
support. Tickets for the Autumn Schools
lectures and for the musical performance on the 25th of October can
be obtained from the Heritage Centre.
Copies of the full weekend programme are also available in the
centre.
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