Shackleton Autumn School 2015

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, 23^rd 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 20^th century and those future space explorers of the 22^nd 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, 25^th 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 25^th of October can be obtained from the Heritage Centre.  Copies of the full weekend programme are also available in the centre.  

Michael O'Keeffe and Des Noonan Remembered

This week saw the passing of Michael O’Keeffe and Des Noonan, two local men whose funerals were attended by friends and neighbours on their final journey to St. Michael’s cemetery.  Funerals, like weddings, bring old friends and family relations together from far and near.  Those two occasions act as great gathering events, especially funerals when one’s attendance is decided by friendship, respect or family connection rather than by formal invitation.  I was reminded of this early this week when attending the funeral of Des Noonan who for many years was proprietor of a public house in Leinster Street.

Des, who retired several years ago, was a former pupil of the Christian Brothers School in Athy and amongst the many individuals who attended the funeral were some of his former school mates.  All of those former Christian Brothers boys are now in their 80s but the friendly solidarity engendered by years of shared school experiences was clear to be seen. 

I got talking to those scholars of the past who included my own brothers Jack and Tony, both of whom had travelled some distance to pay respect to Des.  Another who had made a journey of some distance was Mick McAuley who told me his family sold their pub in Leinster Street to Bobby Flood in 1947 before the McAuley family moved to Kilkenny city.  Mick was a classmate of Des Noonan, but left Athy before what remained of his class went into Leaving Cert.  There was only one student left by the time Des Noonan entered the Leaving Cert class in 1948.  He was the only Leaving Cert pupil that year.  His teachers were Brother Nelson, known as ‘Breezy’, Brother Brennan who went by the name of ‘Luther’, but never addressed as such within his hearing range and the two lay teachers Liam Ryan and Pat Spillane. 

Joe May, Denis Smyth, Jimmy Kelly and Rickie Kelly were students in the Christian Brothers School around the same time and they also attended the funeral of their former school mate.  Both Joe and Jimmy, together with Mick McAuley, featured on the 1946 Christian Brothers school team which played Mullingar in the final of the Leinster Schools competition of that year.  Even with the passing of 69 years memories were still fresh of the final played in Geraldine Park and refereed by local man, ‘Chevit’ Doyle.  The Athy Christian Brothers team lost that day and seven decades later the referee is still being blamed for not allowing a score by the local team which might have swung the match in favour of the youngsters from Athy. 

The photograph which accompanies this Eye is that of the team of 1946 and shows the late Des Noonan as a young fellow of 16 years of age with his school mates.  Those photographed have been identified as follows:

Back Row:

Br. V.S. Nelson (‘Breezy’), Charlie Kelly, Tommy Egan, Jimmy Kelly, Noel Bergin, Eddie Conway, Finbar Hayden.

Middle Row:

Tommy Keyes, Joe May, Paddy Whelan, Mick McAuley, Paddy Harrington, Peadar Dooley, Jackie Doyle.

Front Row:

George (Mossy) Reilly, Des Noonan, Fintan Gibbons, Pascal Myles, Liam O’Keeffe.

With the passing of Michael O’Keeffe and Des Noonan another chapter closes in the life of Athy but the memories live on.  Sympathy is extended to the families of Michael and Des on the deaths of two fine men.

Shackleton's Cabin

On the way to work this morning I noticed a colourful sign advertising a concert to be given by the Garda Siochana band and school choirs in the Dominican Church on Tuesday 6^th October commencing at 8.00 p.m.  My thoughts immediately turned to a generation of uniformed Gardai patrolling the streets of Athy at all hours of the day and night.  My father was the local sergeant in the 1950s and he, like his Garda colleagues, was on duty 24 hours 7 days a week. 

My father was also a ‘Dominican Catholic’ in the same sense that today I am a ‘Parish Catholic’, our Mass attendances confirming that particular status.  In his later years he served weekday Mass in the Dominican Church, while in my young days I served Mass in the Parish Church.  The distinction between the Dominican and Parish Catholic was one of geography for as the River Barrow divided the town, so too did it tend to determine local church allegiances.  Those on the west bank of the river usually supported the Dominicans, while for those on the opposite bank church attendance generally was reserved for the Parish Church.

The concert on 6^th October brings together two important elements of our shared history.  The Garda Siochana established soon after the foundation of the State has served us well.  It’s life span to date is less than a century old and much less than that of the Dominican presence in Athy.  When the Garda band performs in the Dominican Church it will be one of the last occasions that the church, opened in 1965, will be used in this way.  The departure of the Dominican friars from Athy will I understand take place on 22^nd November.

The concert, organised by the local Lions Club to raise funds for local charities, affords us an opportunity to begin the process of saying goodbye to the Dominicans.  There will be other events and ceremonies in the Dominican Church to mark the departure of the Friars Preachers in Athy but nevertheless the Garda concert can be viewed as perhaps the start of the goodbye process. 

Let us all, whether ‘Dominican Catholics’, ‘Parish Catholics’, Church of Ireland, Methodist, Presbyterian or whatever church or chapel adherents, come to the Dominican Church on Tuesday night to enjoy the concert and join in what can be seen as the beginning of the celebration of the Dominican presence in Athy which stretches back over 750 years. 

There has been much publicity both in the national newspapers and on radio concerning the acquisition by the Heritage Centre of the ship’s cabin in which Ernest Shackleton died in 1922.  Shackleton was leading his last expedition to the Antarctic and his ship, ‘The Quest’ was moored in Grytviken, South Georgia on the 5th January 1922 when he died of a heart attack.  ‘The Quest’ was subsequently sold and taken to Norway when the cabin was removed.  It’s existence was first brought to my attention two years ago by Eugene Furlong, a Cork man who was attending the Shackleton Autumn School here in Athy.  Subsequent contact was made with the Norwegian owner and we brought him as our guest to the Shackleton Autumn School in October 2014.  He was impressed by the Shackleton exhibition in the Centre and earlier this year Joe O’Farrell and Seamus Taaffe, both members of the Shackleton Autumn School Committee, travelled to Norway at their own expense to view the Shackleton cabin.  The Heritage Centre subsequently entered into negotiations to acquire the cabin and Kildare County Council was exceptionally supportive of our efforts in that regard.  The Fram Museum in Oslo was also trying to acquire the cabin, but thankfully Athy Heritage Centre succeeded in closing the deal with it’s owner.

The cabin was transported from Norway to Dublin last week by DFDS Logistics, accompanied on the journey by the earlier mentioned Joe O’Farrell and Joe, as I am writing this piece, is accompanying the cabin on its onward journey to the Letterfrack Conservation Centre in Co. Galway.  There it will undergo some conservation work and it is hoped to have the cabin brought to Athy and positioned in the revamped Heritage Centre in time for the Shackleton Autumn School in October 2016.

You may wonder why it will take so long to bring the cabin to Athy.  There are a lot of ongoing negotiations regarding a possible new library for Athy which if successfully concluded will allow the Heritage Centre to occupy the entire historic Town Hall.  This will allow us to redevelop the Shackleton exhibition to become one of national, if not, of international, importance.  In the meantime we await developments.

Don’t forget the concert in the Dominican Church on Tuesday, 6^th October.  Doors open at 7.30 p.m. and admission is €5.00, with all proceeds going to local charities.

Dominicans in Athy

In two months time the Dominican Order will leave Athy for the last time.  Their departure, unlike previous such occurrences, is the result of a voluntary decision precipitated by a fall in vocations.  There were times in the distant past when the local Dominican friars were banished from the town as a result of penal legislation.  Their removal from the local area where their ministry commenced in 1257 was however never permanent as the Friars Preachers always sought to return to the South Kildare town.

Robert Woulff was Prior at the time of the Reformation and thereafter for almost 100 years the Dominican Friary on the East bank of the River Barrow in the area now known as The Abbey was vacant and very likely in a state of ruin.  The Protestant Church erected in the Market Square long before the Town Hall was built was believed by an earlier writer on the town’s history to have contained stone taken from the nearby Dominican Friary. 

The Reformation may have condemned the 13^th century Dominican Friary to a future devoid of religious ceremonies, but the subsequent Penal Laws failed to deprive the local people in the long term of the Catholic ministry provided by the Friars Preachers.  There was certainly a lull of 100 years before the Dominican Provincial, Ross MacGeoghegan restored the Dominicans to Athy and appointed Thomas Bermingham as the new Prior.  His appointment coincided with the latter years of the Confederate Wars and accounts of sieges of Athy during those wars included a graphic account of an attack on the Dominican Friary.  The exact location of the Dominican Friary from 1648 onwards is not clear, but the Dominicans may have reoccupied their original friary. 

The list of Priors from 1648 to 1697 would appear to indicate a period untroubled by rigorous application of the Penal Laws.  This obviously changed in the last few years of the 17^th century when the Dominicans were again forced to leave Athy.  In 1698 all bishops and friars were sent into exile, with the result that Athy was for the next 40 years or so without a Dominican presence.  It was not until the 1740s that the Dominican friars returned to Athy and it was Thomas Cummins who took on the role of Prior.  On their return the Dominicans established a friary in what I believe was Convent Lane, now called Kirwan’s Lane.  Even with the relaxation of the Penal Laws Catholic clergy did not seek to provoke a reaction from reformed Church members by building Catholic churches other than in laneways away from the main street.  It’s for the same reasons that the local Parish Church destroyed by fire in 1800 was built in Church Lane between Leinster Street and Stanhope Place. 

In 1744 Dublin Castle authorities, concerned about the growth of popery, sought reports from the Provinces on the practice of Catholicism.  John Jackson, a local magistrate, reported that he could not find a priest or a friar in Athy.  Clearly the Dominicans who were in the area and the Parish Priest, Fr. Fitzpatrick who lived in Barrowhouse, all kept low profiles.  Ten years or so later the local Parish Church records were left without entries for a number of months due to what was described as the prosecution of the local curate.  Clearly the Penal Laws were still applied even if at times they were ineffective insofar as church practices were concerned.

With the passing of Catholic Emancipation in 1829 a great surge in Catholic Church building took place and some years later the Athy Dominicans acquired property at the end of Tanners Lane (now Church Lane) which was redeveloped as a friary and church.  It has been home to the local Dominican community for the past 175 years or so. 

The first Athy Dominican Prior for which records exist was Philip Pereys who held the position in 1357.  It was Philip Pereys who obtained a pardon from King Edward III for felonies and transgressions committed by him on paying a fine of half a mark and saying 100 masses for the King.  The fine was afterwards remitted on the Prior saying another 100 masses for the same intention.  One wonders what felonies and transgressions were committed by the Rev. Prior!

Dominican martyrs connected with the Athy Friary included Richard Ovington, a former sub Prior of Athy, who was captured and executed by Oliver Cromwell’s troops in Drogheda in 1649.  Cromwell’s men also captured the Athy Prior Thomas Birmingham who after some time in prison was released and exiled to Italy on payment of a fine.  Stories of the local Dominicans fleeing for safety to Derryvullagh Bog ahead of the Cromwellian troops, form a large part of the local folklore.  Records however do note that the Dominican Redmond Moore sought safety in the bog before escaping to the continent.  He later returned to Athy where he was Prior of the local Friary from 1661.

The story of the Dominicans in Athy will soon come to an end.  There remains however more than 750 years of local Dominican history to be studied so that a community served so well for so long can appreciate the enormity of the contribution the Dominican Order made to the people of Athy and district.