Athy's Autumn School should be a townwide festival

The weekend of 8 November was a busy few days for Athy. The 24th Shackleton Autumn School welcomed visitors from all over the world, including such countries as Brazil, Germany, France, United States, Britain, New Zealand and Norway.

Visitors to the town were effusive about the town and its people. All were universal in their praise for the town and the welcoming nature of it’s people. These qualities are something that we as townspeople should be capitalizing on.

Next year will see the 25th year of the Autumn School and also the opening of the new Shackleton Museum. It is an ideal opportunity to consider expanding the Autumn School to a townwide festival. Places, such as Kilkenny, have maximised the opportunities these events provide, such as the Kilkenny Cat Laughs Festival and Kilkenomics over the last number of decades and it is something that we in Athy need to give serious consideration to.

We as a community need to be innovative with the opportunities presented by events such as the Shackleton Autumn School.

Why not curate an outdoor exhibition throughout the town telling the story of Shackleton’s life?

Why not host activities focused on the river, a nod to Shackleton’s early career as a merchant mariner?

The Autumn School itself is not solely focused on delivering lectures on polar history to polar aficionados. This year, at its venue, in The Abbey, 6th year history students of Ardscoil na Tríonóide were treated to a presentation by Philip Curtis of the Map House from London of the mapping of Antarctica.

As in previous years the distinguished sculptor, Mark Richards, the creator of the Shackleton statue, delivered a master class on art to Leaving Certificate art students from Ardscoil na Tríonóide also.

Third-class students from Scoil Mhichil Naofa enjoyed talks on Antarctic wildlife and polar explorers. The highlight for many was an immersive experience in a cold room set to minus 30 degrees to give them an experience of Antarctic temperatures.

It was lovely to see the joy and delight on the faces of those young children coming out of the minus 30 degrees environment to the more ambient temperature of a November morning in Athy.

Other weekend events included a walk around Medieval Athy guided by Marc Guernon while further afield Kilkea native, Sharon Greene, brought visitors to Ballitore and Kilkea.

Others enjoyed or endured a swim in the River Griese with Jonathan Shackleton, while the Kildare Partnership organised a ‘Pole to Pole’ walk on the Barrow Blueway.

Of course, visitors have been coming to the town for centuries. Thomas Lacy of Wexford, who published in 1863 his impressions of his journey around Ireland in the years immediately following the Great Famine, came to Athy in the autumn of 1855 by railway from Carlow.

He found Athy to be a handsome regular town for its size and a very prosperous and flourishing one. Much of what he observed has little changed. He noted Market Square, which is now named Emily Square, as being surrounded with ‘good houses and handsome shops.’ He noted the construction of a new corn exchange (now the Courthouse) and that the principal market was held in the town on Saturdays, and he noted that it was ‘well supplied and very well attended.’ Many of my generation will remember the weighing scales at the rear of the Town Hall. Lacy was impressed by the arrangements in the market way and described ‘a weighing machine has been established where corn, potatoes and other articles are weighed at one half penny per sack and sworn weighing masters are in attendance by whom printed tickets of the weights are given to those who may require them’.

This system was to ensure fairness for both market sellers and market buyers so that nobody could adulterate their products by lying about the weight of a product being sold. He also visited the Model School which was only opened in 1850, writing that ‘the walls were furnished and appropriately decorated with all the newest and best maps of various sizes and with wonderous illustrations of animals, beasts, birds and fish’.

The weekend of the Autumn School also saw the bi-annual Lions Club Book Fair in A.R.C.H. which I am told went off very well and the book sellers will return with more rarities for us all in March next year, the date of which will be confirmed later.