Ernest Shackleton

The Shackleton Museum in Athy closed its doors in December 2022 as part of the first phase of renovation and conservation works began on the building as part of the five million euro redevelopment. The museum has come a long way from its modest origins forty years ago in the then vacant St. Marys secondary school. A group of local enthusiastic volunteers had come together at a meeting in the local Courthouse in 1983 to establish the Athy Museum Society. Many of those volunteers are now gone, Pat Mulhall, Ken Sales, Bertie Doyle and Noreen Ryan, but their legacy will be seen in the transformed Town Hall in late 2024. This year marks the centenary of the publication of the first biography of Ernest Shackleton. ‘The Life of Sir Ernest Shackleton’ was written by Dr. Hugh Robert Mill, a distinguished academic and close personal friend of Ernest Shackleton. Applying himself intensely to the task, he researched and wrote the book in the 12 months after Shackleton’s death, with significant input and assistance from Shackleton’s widow, Lady Emily. The book is a fine celebration of Shackleton’s life, and particularly his early life. We learn that Shackleton was taught to swim by his father in the local river, the Griese, reminding them of the old Quaker joke of the Ballitore school boys, ‘those who go into the Griese come out dripping.’ There was an idyllic element to his early life in Kilkea where Mill’s writes ‘When the little group of Shackleton children went out with their nurse in the country lanes, Ernest was always dropping behind, looking about in the hedges and ditches, happy in his own thoughts, or gathering and eating the wayside flowers. So habitual was this, that the nurse used to call him “Mr. Lag”. It was almost certain that Ernest could read simple words when he was four years old. He was much attracted by music, and would listen in great contentment to his mother singing Irish airs, or playing the piano for an hour at a time.’ Shackleton’s time in Kilkea was short as after his father qualified as a doctor the family moved to Dublin when Shackleton was six. There was no doubt that his early life in south Kildare made a huge impression on him. This early life and his familial connections with Kildare going back two centuries will form an important component of the displays in the revamped Shackleton Museum in addition to the visitors experience of the highs and lows of Shackleton’s polar triumphs and failures. Key exhibits will include a full sizzed replica of the James Caird life boat. This was the boat that Shackleton, Kerry man Tom Crean and the Cork man Tim McCarthy and three others launched from Elephant Island on Easter Monday 1916 to initiate the rescue mission that saved all the men of Shackleton’s ship ‘Endurance’ after their ship was crushed in the Antarctic ice in late 1915. Perhaps the most important and evocative artefact will be the deck cabin from the Shackleton’s last expedition ship ‘RYS Quest’. This extraordinary survival is the cabin in which Shackleton died on 4th January 1922. Many of us will have enjoyed the superb documentary produced by Moondance Productions shown on RTE on 4th January 2022 which told the story of the cabin’s acquisition and restoration by the Shackleton Museum here in Athy. This artefact will be a focal point of the new museum and is destined to draw visitors from all over the globe. I have written recently of the encouraging signs of the economic uplift of the town , particularly in the opening of new businesses and the completion of the works on the Shackleton Museum are no doubt going to be a huge fillip to this process and present exciting opportunities for the town and its people which they no doubt will grasp eagerly. The international reach of the Shackleton story will be evident with the hosting of the 23rd Shackleton Autumn School on the weekend of 20th – 22nd October 2023. With the museum closed for renovations this year’s Autumn School will be held in the Abbey and the lectures themselves will be held in what was the former chapel of the Sisters of Mercy. There is already huge interest in this event and strong bookings are expected. One of the key speakers this year will be Dr. Michael Rosove, an oncologist surgeon from California who is one of the premier Antarctic scholars and he will be speaking about the publication of HR Mills biography of Shackleton in its centenary year. And for our more intrepid visitors a dip in the Griese will be a must!