Shackleton Autumn School 2023 (Part 1)

As summer greens turn to winter browns it is only natural that our thoughts turn to the festive season in December. However, there has been one fixture on the town’s calendar for the last twenty-three years and that is the Shackleton Autumn School which returns on the weekend of the 20th – 22nd October. With the Museum at the Town Hall closed for renovations for the next 18 months the Autumn School has found itself a new home in the Abbey, formerly the Convent of Mercy, Athy. It’s an exciting departure for the Shackleton Autum School as it has a greater range of facilities and spaces available to the attendees and lecturers than in the old Town Hall. After piloting the Autumn School through two years of online events during Covid the Autumn School returned with its best ever attendance last year and the committee hopes that the attendance at this year’s Autumn School will surpass those record numbers in 2022. The committee have worked hard to put in place a programme for the local primary and secondary schools and students will participate in a number of workshops on Friday, 20th October involving the sculptor Mark Richards who created the superb Shackleton statue in the back square. Mike Robinson, the Chief Executive Officer of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society will lead a workshop on climate change. Primary school students will be immersed in the polar world with presentations and workshops involving representatives of the U.K Antarctic Heritage Trust who will share with the students a virtual reality experience giving the students the opportunity to experience an Antarctic base 80 years ago. Donald Lamont of the Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust will address the students on the recent discovery of Shackleton’s ship ‘Endurance’. Finally Hugh Turner, the grand-nephew of the explorer Apsley Cherry Garrard, author of the polar classic – The Worst Journey in the World - will speak to students about what it is like to be a polar explorer. The Autumn school itself will be launched at 7.30p.m. in The Abbey on Friday, 20th October and all our welcome to attend. As ever we can expect attendees from all over the world including the United States, Britain, Germany, France, Spain, Australia and even Singapore. Attendees will be treated to a variety of lectures which include the Scottish pilot Doug Cochrane who will speak about his time flying in the Antarctic followed by the Norwegian archaeologist Synnove Strosvag who will talk about explorers and how they break down barriers in life. The distinguished Antarctic historian Dr. Michael Rosove who will speak of the hundred years that have passed since the first biography of Shackleton was published. Nick Cox, a 30 year veteran of both the Arctic and the Antarctic, will talk about the development of polar clothing and equipment, while the Autum School is delighted to welcome back Mensun Bound, one of the discoverers of The Endurance who will talk about the history of Shackleton’s most famous ship. Other lectures will include Caitlin Brandon on Dr Alexander Macklin who as well as participating on two of Shackleton’s expeditions attended upon Shackleton on his death bed. There are a number of side events which the committee have been able to develop this year given the additional space available in the Abbey including a polar market hall which will host a variety of sellers of polar books, arts and crafts. Everyone is welcome to attend the polar market hall to see the interesting items for sale. The most important part of the weekend for many of the participants and local people is the social side of the Autumn School and as ever O’Brien’s pub in Emily Square will be an important focal point for those attending. The Autumn School is pleased to be associated with the Athy Lions Club hosting of ‘South, Always South’ in St. Michael’s Parish Church Athy at 7.30pm on Sunday 22nd October. This is the story in music, words and pictures of Ernest Shackleton’s life, his Endurance expedition and his extraordinary legacy. It is composed and performed by Brian Hughes (Uilleann piper and whistle) with the County Kildare Orchestra, scripted and narrated by John MacKenna and conducted by Lorcan Daly. All proceeds of the performance will be going to Athy Lions Club and it will be a wonderful opportunity to enjoy local artists in a local setting and tickets can be brought from Winkles newsagents or any Lions Club member or from the offices of Taaffe & Co. Solicitors.

Closure of business premises in Offaly Street, Sylvesters, Kitty Websters, Kehoe's pub and Moore's

Treasured memories of the past were recalled as I drove down Offaly Street on the way to my office early last week. As I passed what in my young days was John W. Kehoe’s pub I saw across the entrance to Butler’s Row workers had started to remove the shop windows of Kitty Websters. Kitty’s was the local sweet and ice cream shop for the youngsters who, like myself, lived in Offaly Street over seventy years ago. It was the place where I can vividly remember spending my one penny pocket money in return for a toffee slab. Kitty with her sister Patty operated the shop, but it was called Kitty Websters, and it was Kitty who as we grew into our early teens was more than willing to break open a packet of Woodbine cigarettes to sell one cigarette to any of the local youngsters. I don’t know what age I was when I first ventured to smoke a cigarette in the People’s Park, far from the prying eyes of parents and other adults. We youngsters knew it simply as the Park, and it was there that the young fellows from Offaly Street spent many hours of the day, especially during school holiday periods. Smoking a cigarette was the sign of an independent minded youngster, aping the habits of an adult. So it was that Kitty’s was my Woodbine supplier until the day, I can still recall, when too much pulling on the noxious weed made me very sick. That was my last ever cigarette. Kitty Websters and Kitty herself were an important part of my youthful background. I can’t remember when Kitty’s closed but my own young children were still crossing the road from their grandmother’s house in Offaly Street in the late seventies to purchase sweets and other delights from Kitty’s. The removal of the windows to be replaced by small windows signalled the change from sweet shop to dwelling house or apartment status. It was as if history had moved in the same way, that many years previously when the communal oven in Kitty’s back yard available for local women to bake bread fell out of use. The once bustling public house owned by the G.A.A. stalworth, John W. Kehoe, just across the laneway from Kitty’s has been shuttered and closed for a number of years. Mona Sylvester’s shop next door to what was Moore’s grocery shop at the corner of the back square has also been converted for use as an apartment. Moore’s grocery shop, presided over by the brothers Michael and Eddie Moore, is now a travel agency. Moore’s honey, harvested by Michael Moore, was one of the many delightful items available in that corner shop. The present owners have had the plaster removed from the exterior walls to reveal the cut stone and window surrounds of brick. It presents a very attractive appearance displaying the workmanship of masons of an earlier age. It was at the one end of a street enlivened by young families who lived there, while the other end near to St. Michael’s Church of Ireland was the Savoy cinema managed by Bob Webster. That cinema in Offaly Street was once a hive of activity every night of the week. The once lively street awaits a regeneration but when it comes Kitty’s of fond memory will have passed into history. Writing of history I’m reminded of a number of queries which have been received during the past week. Can anyone help me to trace Patrick Moore who in 1977 lived in Geraldine when his mother Mary died. His father was Francis Moore who fought in World War I as a Dublin Fusilier and won a D.C.M. military honour, second only to the Victoria Cross. If you can help please contact me. Another query relates to the Miss Mylods who had a boarding house in the old Fever Hospital in the 1960s. Sisters Sarah and Bridget, I believe, came from Shercock, Co. Cavan. Can anyone give me any information as to their background and time in Athy. Athy Lions Club will be promoting a concert in St. Michael’s Parish Church on Sunday 22nd October featuring the Kildare Orchestra with Brian Hughes and John MacKenna in a musical work composed by Brian and scripted by John. Tickets at €25 each can be bought from any Lions Club member, Winkles shop and Eventbrite. Tickets can also be purchased in my office. All proceeds of the concert will go to the Lions Club local charities. It is a good cause and promises to be a great event which incidentally has been arranged as part of this year’s Shackleton Autumn School. The photo exhibition, Identifying the Past’, continues in Athy’s Art Centre in Woodstock Street from 2-5 each day but must finish on Friday, 13th October. It’s a unique exhibition of photos of Athy people taken in the town’s street taken over 70 years ago. Do visit the exhibition to see if you can identify the men, women and children who were part of the local community so many years ago. A final question – can anyone tell me where was Couse Hill, said in 1752 to have been about 1½ miles from Athy? Nearby was, I understand, a mill and the house of a John La Couse, a French Huguenot who fought on the side of King William at the battle of the Boyne.

Culture Night in Athy 2023

Culture Night has come and gone. There were twelve events held in Athy giving us all the opportunity to learn how a diverse range of cultural activities can expand our understanding and appreciation of the arts. Last year I questioned why all the events local, regional and national had to occur on the one night rather than being spread over an entire week. It was again very difficult to attend all the local events and impossible to reach on events held outside the town. A culture week would make more sense and encourage greater public involvement in the various arts. I was sorry to miss local artist Cathy Callan’s painting event in the Irish Wheelchair Association premises at St. Vincent’s Hospital. Cathy is a very talented artist whose work I have admired for some time. My first visit on Culture Night was to Clancy’s bar in Leinster Street to view John Coffey’s photographs of renowned Irish folk musicians. It was wonderful to see that he had captured on film a fine portrait of the late Liam O’Flynn, Ireland’s greatest uilleann piper. It was significant that both of Athy’s current master pipers, Brian Hughes and Joe Byrne, also featured amongst the renowned Irish folk musicians of today. Memories were stirred as I looked at the photograph of the late Anthony O’Byrne, the Donegal man who was one of the founders of the weekly Clancy traditional music sessions and after whom the Tony O’Byrne GAA Park in Ballyadams is named. The town library was the venue for the unique, “The Prado on the Barrow” exhibition featuring the work of some members of Athy’s photographic club. The club borrowed an idea from the main Spanish National Art Museum in Madrid which during the covid lockdown encouraged Spanish families to recreate in real life some of the classic paintings in their collection and to share photographs of their recreations on the internet. The Athy club members were asked to repeat that exercise and twelve of their photographs were chosen for the exhibition. The paintings recreated included works by El Greco, William Leech, Leonardo de Vinci, Van Gogh and several other great masters. “The Prado on the Barrow” was a fascinating exhibition combining fine photography, exceptional costume arrangement and design. Unfortunately, it was limited in terms of exhibition time as it was followed at 6 o’clock by the celebration in song and story of the Johnny Cash visit to Athy sixty years ago. The Arts Centre which has taken on an exciting life post covid was my next port of call. Two events were based in the Arts Centre, the earliest being the exhibition of Athy photographs by the travelling photographer Frank Goggin. He captured on film over 800 local persons on the streets of Athy in 1948 and 1949. The photographs are of a time and a people long past but present family members of those photographed can revisit long forgotten memories as they view friends, family and relations whose images were captured over 70 years ago. The exhibition had been opened in the town Library on the day before Culture Night and transferred to the Arts Centre where it will remain open each day except Sunday from 2.00 – 5.00pm for two weeks. The Arts Centre was also the venue for a production centred on the songs of Burt Bacharach. “Anyone who had a Heart” was a joyful musical tribute to the legendary American songwriter who gave us such timeless songs as “What the World needs now” and “Raindrops keeping falling on my head” amongst many many more. The Arts Centre in Woodstock Street is an excellent music venue and Athy Musical and Dramatic Society with David Walsh as Director and Carmel Day as Musical Director gave the audience on Culture Night, and three other nights as well, a first class show. I could not get around to the six other events but the large number of cultural events on the one night in Athy was a wonderful indication of a culture awareness which augurs well for the future. As Horace the Roman poet once wrote “no one is so far unreclaimed that he cannot become civilised, if only he will lend a patient ear to culture”.

Barbara Sheridan, Retired Editor of Kildare Nationalist

Barbara Sheridan, the Editor of the Kildare Nationalist when that paper first appeared following the separation of the Nationalist and Leinster Times into Carlow, Laois and Kildare editions, retired last week. I first became aware of Barbara, then a young local journalist when I returned to Athy 41 years ago. I wrote a few historical articles which made their appearance in both the Leinster Leader and the Nationalist and Leinster Times. With my election to Athy Urban District Council in 1985 my appearances in the local press became much more frequent. These appearances owed nothing to my penmanship but to Barbara’s acute reporting on Council meetings in the local Council chamber. At those meetings I always sat in the same seat facing the press reporters who overlooked the sunken chamber where the elected representatives and Council officials sat. My choice of seating was determined not by any anxiety on my part to help the press catch my every word but rather by my decision to sit directly opposite Council Paddy Wright. The Sinn Fein Councillor’s words and actions were always likely to create controversy in the Council chamber. I must admit I often ignited the flames of controversy while persistently attacking some might say goading the Sinn Feinner. Reporting on the monthly rows between Paddy and myself gave Barbara the reporter many a good headline. “Orgies held at derelict Athy site said Councillor” was one of many claims made by Paddy who said that the building was owned by the Council chairman, Frank Taaffe. The building according to Paddy was used for “cider parties, orgies and everything”. The pity was I never got invited and never found out what “everything” was. The Council years reported by Barbara Sheridan gave the Nationalist and Leinster Times readers front page headlines such as “Athy UDC row erupts in violence” and “Athy UDC clash ends in walkout”. The offending parties came back for more every month and surprising despite all the rows much good was done during our time on the Council. I stepped down from the Council in 1999 to lead the opposition to the inner relief road and to fight for the outer relief road. The Kildare Nationalist had emerged in 1992 and shortly afterwards Barbara approached me about the possibility of writing a weekly article for the new paper. My first article appeared in September 1992 and that short piece ended with the line “Eye on the past will each week deal with a topic of interest from the history of South Kildare when we will delve into the rich vein of local history which remains to be discovered and related in future articles”. Barbara who started me on the columnist’s journey, which still continues, did me the honour of launching Eye on Athy’s Past Volume III in 2007. She wrote in the foreword of that book how she invited me to contribute a regular column to the Nationalist. The brief she claimed was broad – it was to be something on local history – nothing too serious – and it had to be readable. I thank you Barbara for the opportunity you gave me to tell the story of a town steeped in history and of a people rightly proud of the place we call our own. I call myself a Kilkenny man exiled in Kildare despite having spent the vast majority of my years in the shortgrass county. My early working life was in Naas where I knew Barbara’s father, Brinsley Sheridan as one of the stalwarts of the Moat Club. My first and only appearance on stage was in a play put on by a newly formed county council drama group. The play was performed in Naas and Caragh sometime in the early 1960’s and Brinsley Sheridan was the stage manager and set designer for that play. His daughter, Barbara continues the family connection with the Moat Club in Naas this time as a director. Congratulations and best wishes to Barbara on her retirement. This auld fella will continue on the road Barbara opened up for him for another while.