Shackleton Autumn School 2022

The October Bank Holiday weekend sees the return to Athy of the SHACKLETON AUTUMN SCHOOL. The Autumn School, now in its 22nd year, returns to an in-person format, after being online for the last two years. There is a growing sense of anticipation that this might be one of the best Autumn Schools ever as there is an appetite for such gatherings post Covid. The programme curated by the Shackleton Autumn School Committee is one of the finest I have seen in many years. It combines lectures, exhibitions, book launches and a documentary showing. Given the rich and diverse programme offered by the Shackleton Autumn School it is difficult to pick out the highlights. There are a few lectures that stand out. Last November I wrote about the visit of Mensun Bound, the Falkland Island born marine archaeologist to Athy to visit the museum. At that time Mensun was preparing to depart for the Antarctic and as head of exploration on a daring mission to locate the wreck of Shackleton’s expedition ship ‘Endurance’. This was Mensun’s second attempt to find the ship after a previous expedition was unsuccessful back in 2019. When the news came through of the discovery of the wreck there was huge excitement worldwide. Few can forget the first images released in the media showing the stern of the ship with the lettering ‘Endurance’. As you can imagine Mensun has become a media star since then and this Thursday sees the launch of his book – ‘The Ship beneath the Ice’ about the discovery of the ship. Athy will be hosting one of his first public lectures since the discovery of the ship and as I understand it tickets are selling out extremely fast. Other lectures which caught my attention include Doug Allan’s on Sunday morning. The Scottish-born Doug Allan has been one of the principal cinematographers on David Attenborough’s wildlife documentaries in the frozen parts of our planet over the last 30 years and has a wealth of experience behind him. His ‘A Life on Thin Ice’ talk will reflect on his adventures in both the Arctic and the Antarctic and it is sure to draw a big crowd for what is going to be a visually spectacular presentation. Other speakers will include Astrid Furholt, the Norwegian woman who was the first woman to follow in the footsteps of Roald Amundsen to the South Pole on foot and Katherine MacInnes who will talk about the lives of the wives of the men lost on Captain Scott’s expedition to the South Pole in 1912. On Friday morning Leaving Certificate art students from the town and Carlow will be able to participate in a masterclass with sculptor Mark Richards who created that hugely evocative statue of Shackleton which has graced the Back Square since 2016. A regular feature of the Autumn School has been the launch of books on Polar topics. The Autumn School is spoiled with two book launches this year. The first is Fergus O’Gorman’s ‘Antarctic Affair’, an account of his time spent in the Antarctic in the late fifties. His book is being published by locally based Harvest Press. That book launch will occur in the Museum that Friday evening and that will be followed by another book launch in O’Brien’s pub where Russell Potter and his fellow authors will launch ‘May we be spared to meet on Earth: letters from the lost Franklin Expedition’. This book focuses on the expedition which disappeared in the Arctic. The participation of Norway in Polar affairs will also be reflected on by Geir Klover, the Director of the Fram Museum from Oslo, perhaps the greatest polar museum in the world, when he takes a look back on the reputation of Norway’s greatest polar explorer, Roald Amundsen 150 years after his birth. Other lectures include Naas man Kevin Kenny’s introduction to Ernest Shackleton and environmentalist Sadbh O’Neill’s reflection on what Ernest Shackleton can teach us about resilience and leadership in the age of climate crisis. Other events will include an Autumn School dinner in the Green Barn at Burtown, a bus tour of Shackleton country led by local writer John MacKenna and myself and the final event of the weekend will be a showing of the wonderful documentary, ‘Shackleton’s Cabin’ which aired on RTE back in May and that will be shown in the Athy Arts Centre on Sunday night at 8pm. The showing will then be followed by a question-and-answer session with Sven Habermann, the conservator who restored Shackleton’s cabin, and also with Shane Brennan, the producer and director of the documentary. There is a little something for everybody in the weekend and I would encourage people in the town to have a look at the brochure which is available on the museum website, www.shackletonmuseum.com as there is bound to be something of interest to every age and background.

Athy's sporting success in 2022

Grandfatherly duties brought me recently to the new pitches recently acquired and developed by Athy Gaelic Football Club. My granddaughter Eva had to be collected following a training session and I was left marvelling at the recent growth of female involvement in Gaelic football. Little did the Athy men of the 1937 championship winning team, whose photograph I am now looking at, imagine that the game nurtured by Michael Cusack and his colleagues would cater for sports loving young females a few generations later. Reportage of sporting activities fill a not inconsiderable number of pages in our daily and weekly newspapers as they bring us news of success and defeats in almost equal measure. For Gaelic football followers with allegiance to Athy Gaelic Football Club, the defeat of the club’s senior players in the County Championship Senior Semi-Final this year was a huge disappointment. Short of its key player, midfielder Kevin Feeley who was side-lined due to injury, the Athy team nevertheless were masters in an error strewn first half which saw them waste a series of good chances playing against their opponents Clane. The team eventually lost the opportunity to face Naas in the County Final to the disappointment of their faithful followers. It was a huge loss for the club members and the team, but football matches in the weeks following brought welcome success for the South Kildare club. There was a double measure of success on the same day in Newbridge when Athy’s minor team won the Minor B final playing St. Conleth’s Park. The early start time of 1.30pm saw the Cathal Kennedy led team defeat their Clane opponents on a score of 2-11 to 1-13. A few hours later, this time in the Hawkfield pitch in Newbridge, the Reserve A Football Final featured Athy and Naas. Playing was Athy’s second senior team and the young Cathal Kennedy, who had earlier won the man of the match award in the minor final, again featured prominently as Athy defeated Naas on penalties after extra time. Athy Gaelic Football Club, after the disappointment of the senior championship defeat, was now county champions at minor and Reserve A level. The club has also reached this year’s Under 14 years final and the Under 16 years final, both of which will be played sometime soon. The club’s successes is an excellent indication of the enthusiasm which marks the club’s football activities. I understand there are no less than three senior teams in the club, with an Under 20 years team, a minor team and various underage teams ranging from Under 16 years down as far as Under 7 years. The club officials include Henry Howard as President, Marty McEvoy as Chairman, James Robinson and Laura Kinahan Joint Secretaries and Tony Foley, Club Treasurer. The club founded, it is believed in 1887, has a proud history which sadly remains unwritten. The development it embarked upon five years ago to add two fully floodlit pitches to its existing Geraldine Park pitch, is now coming to a successful conclusion and promises to afford every possible opportunity to Athy G.F.C. to achieve more success in the future. If Athy Gaelic Football Club was recently achieving much success on the field of play, another local sporting club, Clonmullin Association Football Club, was doing likewise. The soccer club, formed in 1995 by the late Micheal O’Neill, Ger Connell and Micky Roycroft, recently became the KDFL Senior Division champions after defeating Athy AFC on the Clonmullin home pitch. It followed some weeks after the Clonmullin club had lost a three year home winning run when losing in somewhat controversial circumstances to Oliver Bond Celtic. The Clonmullin club’s ground was allocated to the club by Athy Urban District Council and with funding under the Sports Capital Programme a fine clubhouse was built approximately 10 years ago. There are two senior teams in the club, which was presided over for many years by my late Urban Council colleague, Paddy Wright. Indeed, Paddy played an important part in the club’s successful negotiation with the Urban District Council which ultimately resulted in the development of the club’s current soccer pitch in Clonmullin. On December 19, 1922, the largest mass execution during the Civil War took place at the Glass House military prison on the Curragh. Seven members of the Rathbride I.R.A. Column, Patrick Bagnall, Patrick Mangan, Fairgreen Kildare, Joseph Johnston, Station Road, Kildare, Bryan Moore, Patrick Nolan, Rathbride, Stephen White Abbey St, Kildare and James O’Connor, Bansha, Co. Tipperary, who had been captured in a dugout at a farmhouse in Mooresbridge on December 13th were summarily tried and sentenced to death. Their executions, coming only 11 days after the high-profile executions of anti-Treaty leaders Rory O’Connor, Liam Mellows, Richard Barret and Joe McKelvey on December 8th in Mountjoy Prison marked a further escalation in the Free State Government’s execution policy which would ultimately end with 83 official executions by the end of May 1923. This Tuesday, 18th October at 8pm in the Arts Centre on Woodstock Street, Des Dalton will give a talk on the arrest, trial and execution of the Rathbride men during the Civil War. The lecture, which is part of the Autumn/Winter Lecture Series organised by the Arts Centre, is free.

Civil War atrocities in Kerry

I was in Tralee last weekend for the AGM of the Federation of Local History Societies of Ireland. This annual event, held in a different county each year, brings together local history society members from across Ireland, north and south. They are part of the many local history societies whose work is to record local history, thereby helping to make a contribution to our understanding of the past. In this, the centenary of the Civil War, I was interested in visiting again the magnificent monument at Ballyseedy to the anti-Treaty men (IRA) who were killed so savagely on the morning of 7th March 1923 by Free State soldiers. The killings were part of a series which started when anti-Treaty forces laid booby trap bombs in the village of Knocknagoshel which it was later claimed were intended to kill a Free State officer who was allegedly involved in torturing IRA prisoners. The Knocknagoshel bombs resulted in the killing of five Free State soldiers, including the officer who was targeted by the IRA. As Tom Doyle in his book, ‘The Civil War in Kerry’ explained the Knocknagoshel atrocity grew out of a row between neighbours involving a local farmer and some IRA men. It was claimed that the farmer informed on the local IRA, for which he was fined and having refused to pay the fine, the IRA seized some of his cattle. The farmer’s son, soon afterwards, joined the Free State army and it is claimed that in retaliation for what happened to his father he captured a number of local IRA men. The IRA laid mines and had a message sent to the army officer purporting to show where a republican arms dump was located. During a subsequent search the mines exploded, killing the army officer and four other soldiers, while a sixth soldier lost both his legs. The next day, March 7th, Free State soldiers, understood to be members of the Dublin Brigade, seeking revenge for what happened in Knocknagoshel, brought nine prisoners from Tralee to clear a road block at Ballyseedy which the Free Staters had mined. Eight IRA men were blown to pieces, but one man miraculously survived. Later that same day other Dublin Brigade soldiers brought five IRA prisoners to Countess Bridge, an isolated location outside Killarney, to clear another road blockage. This time the prisoners were set to work clearing the road when the Free State soldiers lobbed hand grenades towards them, as well as spraying them with machine gun fire. Four IRA men were killed and as it happened earlier that day in Ballyseedy, one man had a miraculous escape. Five days later Dublin Brigade soldiers collected five IRA prisoners from a workhouse in Caherciveen which was used to house Republican visitors. They were brought a short distance from the workhouse and were all shot in the legs before being placed on a mined barricade which was then exploded. The unfortunate men all died at the scene, the Dublin Brigade soldiers having ensured that unlike Ballyseedy and Countess Bridge there would be no survivors. The atrocities committed during the Civil War came from both sides – the anti-Treaty IRA and the Treaty Free Staters. It was President O’Higgins, who earlier this year called on all of us to remember the sacrifices made by both sides in the conflict with an inclusive commemoration involving an honest recognition of the facts of history. There are some amongst us who will not share an inclusive commemoration as evidenced by the destruction some few years ago of the Knocknagoshel memorial which was attacked and badly damaged. A marble plaque erected at Countess Bridge to the memory of the four IRA men killed in 1923 was torn down a few years after it was erected. The plaque was subsequently replaced, but the deliberate damaging of the memorial was a clear indication that animosities lingered long after the end of the Civil War. There are many monuments throughout the country to participants in the War of Independence and the Civil War. On a previous visit to Banna Strand and the Roger Casement monument located there I took note of a number of memorial crosses on the roadside leading to the strand. Each marked the location where IRA members were killed. Michael Sinnott killed 13th March 1923, James O’Connor killed 13th February 1923, Eugene Fitzgerald killed 16th January 1923, were three such memorials. Local memorials provide a focus for local remembrance and help to keep the story of those commemorated in the public eye. It’s in recording those stories and authenticating the facts surrounding events of the past that local history society members play an important role. On December 19, 1922, the single biggest executions during the Civil War took place at the Glass House military prison on the Curragh. Seven members of the Rathbride Column, Patrick Bagnall, Patrick Mangan, Fairgreen Kildare, Joseph Johnston, Station Road, Kildare, Bryan Moore, Patrick Nolan, Rathbride, Stephen White Abbey St, Kildare and James O’Connor, Bansha, Co. Tipperary, who had been captured in a dugout at a farmhouse in Mooresbridge on December 13th were summarily tried and sentenced to death. Their executions, coming only 11 days after the high-profile executions of anti-Treaty leaders Rory O’Connor, Liam Mellows, Richard Barret and Joe McKelvey on December 8th in Mountjoy Prison marked a further escalation in the Free State Government’s execution policy which would ultimately end with 83 official executions by the end of May 1923. The Rathbride Column was one of a number of Active Service Units (ASUs) set up by the anti-Treaty IRA in Co Kildare. The Column has been active on the northern fringes of the Curragh and had carried out a series of attacks on the rail network. On Tuesday, 18th October at 8pm in the Arts Centre on Woodstock Street, Des Dalton will give a talk on the arrest, trial and execution of the Rathbride men during the Civil War. The lecture, which is part of the Autumn/Winter Lecture Series organised by the Arts Centre, is free.

Culture Night in Athy in 2022

Culture Night has been with us for several years. It is the one night of the Irish year we are encouraged to celebrate the richness and diversity of our shared cultures. Organised on a local basis and coordinated at county level, the different events of culture night provided a unique opportunity to sample and to begin to appreciate the works of talented people amongst us. I was understandably committed to attending the official launch of the Shackleton mural painted on the side wall of Quinn’s office next to the Town Hall. The Norwegian Ambassador to Ireland Skari Nare did the honours on Friday night. The mural painted by the UK artist Eloise Gillow is a magnificent piece of artistic work and brings together the Kilkea-born explorer and the Norwegian Explorer Amundsen whose reference to Shackleton is displayed on the wall next to Shackleton’s portrait. Immediately afterwards, I visited the photographic exhibition housed in the Courthouse arcade. This exhibition was Athy Photographic Club’s contribution to culture night and it attracted an interested and appreciative audience throughout the evening. The work of the photographic club members past and present over the years has captured on film local persons, local events and local scenes which will be treasured as the years go by. They are compiling a social history in visual form and their work will, I hope, be suitably archived so that future generations can understand and appreciate the people and the times which have gone before. Later in the evening I paid a visit to Bradbury’s restaurant where Colm Walsh had arranged a celebration of the life and work of Athy born Chris Neil. An internationally renowned record producer, Chris was born at No. 5 Lower St. Joseph’s Terrace from where his family emigrated to Manchester. The night took the format of a public interview conducted by Chris McKenna and performances of Chris Neil’s more famous works by local artists. Carmel Day was the musical director on the night. Maureen Moran, Steve Nicolls, Levi Maher, Chris Swayne, Justin Kelly, Carmel Day, CarolAnne Haskins, Shane Sullivan and the beautiful Noise Choir all performed. Later that evening a ‘Made of Athy’ plaque was unveiled by Chris outside O’Brien’s pub in Emily Square. The Castlemitchell Community Hall was the venue for the Moneen Players presentation of Dylan Thomas’s radio drama ‘Under Milkwood’. The players are associates of Athy Musical and Dramatic Society and sixteen of them were on stage as they voiced with the help of two narrators the thoughts and dreams of the inhabitants of a small Welsh fishing village. It was a commendable performance by all involved under the direction of David Walsh whose father Tommy, I as a young lad, had the opportunity of watching on stage on several occasions during Social Club Players performances in the Social Club in St. John’s Lane and the Town Hall. One of the most engaging performances was on the Saturday morning after Culture Night when actors from Kill and further afield with the assistance of re-enactors from Monasterevin enacted the trial of the County Kildare patriot John Devoy. Scripted by Brian McCabe, the Fenian Devoy was arrested and brought to the courtroom on the fourth floor of Lawlor’s Hotel in Naas. The trial took place in a courtroom which had been removed from a disused Courthouse in Wales and re-assembled in Naas. The audience sat facing the Judge and enjoyed the performance which allowed us a glimpse of the Devoy family story which started at the Heath just outside Athy before Devoy family members moved to Kill in the early part of the 19th Century. The play and its setting provided an unusual and a most enjoyable morning for audience and performers alike. The next day I attended the unveiling of the ‘Squires’ Gannon statue in Kildare’s Town Square. Kildare won its last All Ireland Championship final in 1928, the first year the Sam Maguire Cup was presented to the winning team captain. Crafted by the master artist, Mark Richards, the statute was commissioned by Kildare County Council. The Council was also responsible for commissioning a few years ago the statue of the Polar explorer, Ernest Shackleton, executed by Mark Richards, which stands in Emily Square. The unveiling ceremony was quite an impressive and enjoyable affair and the booklet handed out to everyone attending was a real bonus. There were no Athy players on the 1928 team but the 1935 Kildare All Ireland final team was captained by Athy player Paul Matthews who lined out with club colleague, Tommy Mulhall and Castledermot players Paddy Martin and Paddy Byrne. They should also have had Patrick (Cuddy) Chanders of Athy playing in goals during that final. Kildare lost that day to Cavan and we still wait for an Athy Club player to win an All-Ireland Senior Championship medal on the field of play. The events of Culture Night and the days immediately afterwards afforded a wonderful opportunity of acknowledging the contribution made by so may to the cultural life of our towns and villages. I wonder if its not now time to extend the single cultural night to become a cultural week allowing events to be spread over seven days. This would have the benefit of allowing greater participation at events which is not possible when so many events are scheduled for one night as in Athy last Friday.