Change from Heritage Company to Shackleton Museum

Road closures were the subject of some angry comments on Facebook during the past week. They coincided with the publication of a notice regarding the closure of Offaly Street for a number of weeks to facilitate work on the redevelopment of the Town Hall. However, the comments related to the half day closure of part of the Carlow Road during the running of the Athy Race last Sunday. It is rather a pity that the event which attracted a lot of runners gave rise to these comments. The event was by all accounts very successful and hopefully the organisers will have learned the value of earning and retaining community support by giving appropriate advance notice of race routes, times, etc. As to the lengthy closure to traffic of Offaly Street I can only claim that it’s a sacrifice which will be well rewarded when work on the Shackleton Museum is completed. It is anticipated that the Museum should be ready for opening in the summer of 2025. Within the next few weeks work will start on assembling the glass iceberg shaped extension to the rear of the Town Hall. Before that work commences the ship’s cabin in which the Kilkea-born Polar explorer Ernest Shackleton died, will be brought from Letterfrack, Co. Galway and positioned on the first floor of the Town Hall building. It will be transported in a protective casing which will remain in place until building work in the Town Hall is completed. Another important exhibit which in time will be moved into the building is a full scale replica of the James Caird boat which the three Irishmen, Shackleton, Tom Crean and Tim McCarthy with three other companions travelled over 800 miles across the Weddell Sea in the first stage of a heroic and successful attempt to save the lives of 22 of their companions who were marooned on Elephant Island. On Monday evening, 15th April, the last meeting of the current directors of the Shackleton Museum was held in the Clanard Court Hotel. What had started out 41 years ago as a local Museum Society with ambitions to open a small local museum in Athy has evolved as a museum of national, if not international importance. Many of those volunteers in the early years of the Museum Society have passed on. Amongst them were the late Pat Mulhall, Bertie Doyle, Ken Sales, Noreen Ryan and Tommy Pender who are remembered with gratitude and fondness for the part they played in a magnificent local project. Kildare County Council will hereafter take over the management and control of the Shackleton Museum, thereby ensuring its financial viability and stability which could not be guaranteed long term by volunteers. To all those men and women who have given of their time, expertise and energy to making Athy Heritage Centre and later the Shackleton Museum a rousing success I extend my heartfelt thanks. Side by side with the Shackleton Museum stands the Shackleton Autumn School, now in its 24th year, which has made a huge contribution to the acceptance at international level of the Shackleton interest in Athy. The voluntary committee members who have organised the Autumn School in recent years and made it the most popular annual Polar event anywhere in the world will continue to do so. What is being created amongst the hallowed walls of Athy’s 18th century Town Hall is a reminder to all of us of what can be achieved when ambition, initiative and will to do come together in locals willing to work to improve their own place. I wrote recently of the neglectful, almost derelict state of many buildings on our high street and bemoaned the absence of a local association ready to tackle the resulting problems. The success of the Shackleton Museum demonstrates what can be achieved by local people coming together. Is it too much to hope that people in business in Athy would come together to help rescue, before it is too late, the commercial heart of our proud town? The next meeting of the newly formed Athy’s History Society will be held in the local Community Arts Centre on Thursday, 9th May commencing at 7.30pm. The meeting will elect officers of the society for the coming year and a discussion will take place on the future of both Whites Castle and Woodstock Castle. The appointment of the Bishop of Achonry, Paul Dempsey, as second auxiliary Bishop of Dublin, alongside Bishop Donal Dunne, is wonderful news for Athy where Bishop Dempsey grew up. We can look forward to Athy youngsters being confirmed by a man who as a young boy attended our local schools. He will be following in the footsteps of Cardinal Paul Cullen who was born in Prospect House near Ballitore and who performed confirmations in Athy, although he attended the Quaker School in Ballitore at a time when there were then no schools in Athy such as we have today.