Sir Ernest Shackleton and Francis Kennedy Pease

In the early hours of the morning of the 5^th of January 1922 the Kilkea born explorer Ernest Shackleton died on his ship the Quest, anchored off the island of South Georgia. He was 47 years of age. On learning of his death, his wife, Lady Shackleton decided it would be more appropriate that he would be buried in South Georgia in the area to which he journeyed so often. Shackleton was buried in the cemetery in Grytviken, South Georgia and the crew of his ship erected a simple wooden cross over his grave.

This would remain his grave marker for a number of years and Alastair Hardy a zoologist, visiting Shackleton's grave in 1926 was shocked to find it had no proper headstone. This was remedied the following year when the ship RSS Discovery on an expedition to study the biology of the Antarctic waters delivered to South Georgia a headstone for Shackleton's grave. The Discovery was the ship on which Shackleton had first sailed to the Antarctic in 1902 as an officer on Captain Robert Falcon Scotts first Antarctic expeditition.

Fittingly a member of the crew of the RSS Discovery was the Kildare born Francis Kennedy Pease. Kennedy, a young midshipman, was born in the Curragh on the 13^th of February 1908 where his father Major Charles Pease was an officer in the British Army. 

The Captain of the Discovery, J R Stenhouse, who had served with Shackleton, and being a relation of Pease secured Pease a place in the crew. Pease himself had met Shackleton as a schoolboy and wrote “I, myself, had met Shackleton. It was years before, when I was a boy, aged 15, a pupil of St. Helen's College, South Sea and I had had the great privilage of been presented to him. He was then just departing on one of his expedititions to the Antarctic. It was he who first inspired me with desire for Polar Exploration. Looking at him I thought how wonderful, it would be to be a man like him.”

In his book 'To the Ends of the Earth' he recorded the ceremony in which Shackleton's headstone was installed “Most memorable, of all my South Georgia experiences was the unveiling of the tombstone on Sir Ernest Shackleton's grave. The grave was in the little cemetery at Grytviken, on the slope overlooking the harbour, and we had brought the tombstone in the Discovery from England as far as the Falkland islands, where it had been suitably engraved and then brought here to South Georgia. It was South Georgia's great day – her greatest day. All the whaling work was stopped for the occasion. The whale catchers came in from the sea; the little harbour was filled with their ships. In their hundreds the men lined the slopes about the little cemetary; old men and young, nearly all Norwegians, seabooted, heavy woollen gloves on their hands, thick mufflers about their throats. Almost all of them had known Shackleton. There were whale captains who had been his great friends – rugged, large hearted men. A hymn was sung - “Abide with me”. Leaflets containing the words in both English and Norweign had been supplied. There was no music, nor was any wanted. All hands sang with all their hearts. Their voices went over the snowclad slopes, resonant and deep. There was no mistaking the throb of it. Some of them who had known Shackleton closely found it hard to sing at all. I knew what they were feeling. At the end of the ceremony another hymn was sung, deep and resonant like the first and buglers in the guard of honour sounded the last post. The men were in no hurry to drift back to the whale work on their ships. They stood about the grave. The eyes of many were wet. Shackleton's grave was in the midst of the graves of seven whale captains and two Polar Explorers. There was something infinitely moving in the fact that he should be in such fitting company.”

Pease, after leaving the Discovery Expedition continued his Polar Exploration career with a period in the Arctic in 1934. After service in the Royal Air Force in World War II he spent the rest of his life as a landscape contractor dying in 1987. He enjoys the unique distinction of being the only other Kildare born Polar explorer who met Shackleton.

Sir Ernest Shackleton

He died early on the morning of 5th January, 75 years ago on board a ship anchored off a whaling station in the Antarctic. Ernest Shackleton, Edwardian hero, whose life and achievements are currently being reassessed, was on his fourth journey of exploration to the Antarctic when he died. He had first set foot on that forbidden uncharted area as a member of Scott's expedition during 1901 to 1903 when a young man of 27 years of age. Born in Kilkea House, Kilkea, Co. Kildare on 15th February, 1874, Ernest was the eldest son and second child of Henry and Henrietta Shackleton. His father was a fourth generation descendant of Abraham Shackleton who had founded the Quaker School in Ballitore in the 18th century. The Kilkea Shackletons, unlike their Shackleton ancestors, were Anglicans and they were to leave their large Georgian house and farm for Dublin in 1880 when Henry Shackleton resumed his studies in Trinity College. Immediately on qualifying as a Doctor, he and the entire family emigrated to England where Ernest, the future explorer, was to spend the rest of his life.

Another brother of the future explorer was Frank Shackleton who was to achieve certain notoriety as one of the chief suspects in the robbery of the Irish Crown Jewels in 1904. Sir Arthur Vicars who was murdered in April 1921 during the Irish troubles had always claimed that Frank Shackleton was the thief responsible for the mysterious disappearance of the jewels of which he, Vicars, was the official custodian.

Ernest Shackleton's greatest achievements were on his second and third attempts to reach the South Pole. He led his own expedition to the Antarctic on the whaling ship "Nimrod", which set out from London on 30th July, 1907. This was his most successful attempt to be the first man to reach the South Pole when he came within 97 miles of his objective before having to give up the attempt. On his return to England he was feted and received a Knighthood in 1909, the same year that a book of his exploits titled "The Heart of the Antarctic" was published. The must sought after prize of first man to reach the South Pole was to fall to the Norwegian, Roald Amundsen, who arrived there on 14th December, 1911.

It was Shackleton's third trip to the Antarctic for which he is now most remembered. This started on 1st August, 1914, just days before England declared war in Germany. The County Kildare man Shackleton accompanied by 27 men set sail on a boat which he had renamed "Endurance". The name had been taken from Shackleton's family motto, "By Endurance We Conquer" and as events were to prove, was a harbinger of what was to come over the next two years. The initial stages of the journey were uneventful and even when the boat stuck in ice on 19th January, 1915 there were little grounds for fearing the worst. However, the boat was still caught in the icy fastness of the Antarctic on the following 27th October when it was crushed and had to be abandoned. Shackleton now faced the daunting task of saving his men and he decided that they should travel across the ice floes to Elephant Island on the North West edge of the Weddell Sea. The journey was to take 5 months and near the end the men were confined to a single ice floe which had broken away and drifted on the seas. Conscious of the dangers of the floe cracking, Shackleton and his men were very low in spirit, existing as they did solely on seal meat. The 100 sledge dogs brought on the expedition were kept alive as long as possible, but eventually had to be shot on 30th March. Two weeks afterwards the expedition members reached the safety of land, while at the same time the London newspapers were carrying headlines announcing the loss of Shackleton and his men.

The immediate danger had passed now that the expedition had reached unpopulated land, but somehow or other Shackleton and his men had to get to the whaling station of South Georgia Island which was over 800 miles away. The courageous leader and 5 of his companions set off 9 days later in a 22ft. boat called "James Caird" to travel across 800 miles of rough seas. Two of his companions on that trip were fellow Irishmen, Tom Crean and Jim McCarthy. The story of that trip like that of the overland journey across the ice floes was one of amazing courage and on 10th May, 1916 six men reached land but then had to make a further overland trip lasting 10 days to reach the whaling station at Stromness. From there a relief expedition under Shackleton set out to rescue the men left behind in Elephant Island and after no less than 3 attempts these men were finally rescued on 30th August, 1916.

Shackleton and the members of his team returned to London to a heroes welcome and the story of that expedition was recounted in Shackleton's second book published in 1919 which he called "South".

Financial problems beset Shackleton and he was to spend the next few years on a tour of lecturing halls recounting his experiences in the South Pole. Almost inevitably, the attraction of the Antarctic drew back Shackleton yet again and in 1921 he set out on his 4th and final expedition. It was while on the early stages of that expedition that he died of a heart attack on South Georgia on 15th January, 1922. Shackleton's body was sent back to England for burial, but on his wife's instructions the remains were turned back at Montevideo and brought back for burial on South Georgia.

Shackleton, the man who created the image of the polar explorer as a hero, never received, until recently, the recognition that he deserved in this country. This is now changing, ever so slowly, what with the current Irish expedition to the Antarctic retracing one of Shackleton's journeys. The Athy Heritage Centre which will be opened during 1997 will also have as one of it's many attractions, an exhibition on Shackleton, the local man who may not have reached the South Pole, but who conquered the World of Polar Exploration with his courage and leadership.