Athy's Town Hall and its redevelopment as Shackleton Museum

The ongoing redevelopment of Athy’s Town Hall seems to have puzzled some local residents who were unaware of the plans for the Shackleton Museum. This lack of knowledge probably owes much to the ever increasing lack of support for print journalism as the story of the museum has featured several times over the years in the local newspapers. Athy’s Town Hall like Whites Castle is an iconic building whose importance as part of the town’s built heritage has not always been appreciated. The Nationalist newspaper reported on the 7th November 1980 that “Athy Urban District Council have passed a motion to demolish the building and replace it with a modern structure”. This had followed the Council members consideration some years earlier of a motion to demolish the Town Hall so as to provide extra car parking facilities in the town centre. Happily, the building which was admittedly in a sad state of semi dereliction at that time was saved following the intervention of the local branch of An Taisce. A subsequent Community Employment Scheme helped restore the building which continued to be used for a time as the town’s Council offices, the local Fire Brigade station and later still as the town library. The local Museum Society, which was founded in 1983, was allowed to occupy in or about 1985 what was once the caretaker’s living quarters in the Town Hall. With the subsequent departure of the Fire Station to newly built facilities at Woodstock Street, the Museum Society took over the entire ground floor of the Town Hall. Further expansion of the Museum then designated as a Heritage Centre followed with the transfer of the Town Library to the magnificent former Dominican Church. The growing national and international success of the Shackleton Autumn School organised by volunteers working from the Heritage Centre sparked the idea of a Museum dedicated to one of the world’s most famous polar explorers Ernest Shackleton who was born in nearby Kilkea. The work which is now being undertaken at the Town Hall is the final stage of several years of planning to give the town of Athy a Museum of national importance. Building work which will last until mid-2025 will give us quite an extraordinary architectural addition to the town’s built heritage. Athy Museum Society first formed in 1983 and which later established Athy Heritage Company Limited to operate the Heritage Centre will be soon dissolved. It is intended to call a public meeting open to all persons interested in Athy’s history and local history generally to formalise the setting up of Athy’s History Society. Details of that meeting, venue and the date will be published shortly. The current members of the Board of Directors of Athy Heritage Company Limited, all of whom are volunteers will, with two exceptions, resign from the Board in the very near future. The new Board of Directors will be nominated by Kildare County Council and thereafter the Shackleton Museum will be effectively operated subject to the control of the County’s Local Authority. There have been many persons who over the years volunteered their time and expertise to the running of the original Museum and the Heritage Centre. It would perhaps be invidious to name names for fear of leaving out anyone who contributed at any time over the last forty years to the museum’s success. However, a heartfelt thanks must go to everybody in Athy and elsewhere who have made a contribution to the ongoing success of the Heritage Centre/Shackleton Museum and the Shackleton Autumn School. With the resignation of all but two of the current Board of Directors, I too will be stepping down as Chairman of the Board. It has taken forty years to get the museum story to this point almost as long as it took to get the outer relief road which opened last year. Writing of one iconic building in our town I have to acknowledge that the most important building in Athy, having regard to its links with past historical events and its location in the heart of the town, is Whites Castle. While it continues in private ownership there is no indication that there are plans in place to protect and conserve the building structure. Having regard to its current condition concern must be expressed at the possibility of losing Athy’s most widely known and distinctive building. I am reminded of the comments made by the Kildare County Council C.E.O. at the recent opening of the new library in Naas when she described the Naas Town Hall as ‘an iconic building at the heart of Naas being given a new use while preserving its history and heritage.’ If there is any other building in the entire county of Kildare fitting that description it is surely Athy’s Whites Castle. I have sought over many years to interest the former Athy Town Council and Kildare County Council in acquiring Whites Castle. Placing it in public ownership offers the best possibility of conserving the building and allowing it to be developed and used for the benefit of the public. Now that local authorities have greater responsibility than ever before for matters of culture and heritage, surely Kildare County Council should now seriously consider what it can do to ensure the future of the 600-year-old building at the heart of our town. The history lecture series in the Community Arts Centre, Woodstock Street recommences on Tuesday, 13th February at 8.00 p.m. with a lecture by Adrian Kane whose book on Trade Unions was recently published. Adrian, who is an officer with S.I.P.T.U., is a native of Athy and has been based and working in Cork for a number of years. His father Paddy was an active community worker during his lifetime here in Athy and one of the founding members of Athy Credit Union. Admission is free to what promises to be a stimulating evening.