Kildare's connection to Tom Crean's adventures
Lieutenant John de Robeck 1889
Kildare Town Library recently was the setting for the launch of Kildare native, David Butler’s new graphic novel – .
With text by Michael Smith (the author of the iconic biography of Tom Crean – ) and lettering by Louise McSharry, it is published by the O’Brien Press.
Butler, who previously illustrated the novel, , spoke at the launch of his novel of his inspiration drawn from the life stories of Ernest Shackleton and Tom Crean.
The graphic novel is a medium with which I am not terribly familiar. As a young fellow, I eagerly perused the shelves of my local library in search of the latest unread detective novel. In my youth, my voracious appetite for reading was easily satisfied, and a weekly novel coupled with my daily diet of comics was the extent of my young aspirations for literary appreciation.
The local library of the 1950s was a small affair compared to the information emporiums they are today.
The Athy library, then based in a small room in the Town Hall, was to my young eyes more than adequate to meet the town's thirst for knowledge.
After all it took ages to decide what book to borrow from the packed shelves which were to be found at the top of the darkened stairs, which led from the street directly opposite Mrs. Meehan's chemist shop.
The staircase may not indeed have been dark at all but since the local Freemasons Lodge met in a room at the top of the same stairs you can appreciate how a young fellow fed on stories of the secret and "demonic" activities of the brotherhood might well feel that the stairs too was a dark and sinister place.
The modern library in Kildare, like that in Athy, is a bright, welcoming space and while the book launch was being held, there was a buzz about the place as many young children sought out reading materials for the week.
Ivan O’Brien, the managing director of the O’Brien Press, who published the book, spoke about his publishing house’s own journey into first publishing graphic novels fifteen years ago.
It was to him a different way of telling a story and trying to find a perfect balance between text and graphics.
He paid tribute to both David Butler and Michael Smith in distilling the story of Tom Crean’s life into a graphic novel, while at the same time maintaining a pace which would engage readers of all ages.
He told the audience that books were competing with other media, and in reading a graphic novel, you are effectively creating a cinema in your own head.
The book was launched by Kevin Kenny, a Naas native, who has been prominent in the development of the Shackleton Museum in Athy over the last twenty years. Kevin reminded the audience of the many Kildare connections to Tom Crean’s Polar story including, of course, that of Ernest Shackleton who served alongside Crean on Captain Scott’s 1901-1904 Discovery expedition to the Antarctic.
Kevin pointed out another Kildare connection to the polar narrative. In 1899, the Naas-born Royal Naval Officer John de Robeck was in the running to be appointed leader of the Discovery expedition.
Sir Clements Markham, then President of the Royal Geographical Society, who was instrumental in organising the expedition, had shortlisted de Robeck, describing him as ‘hard as nails, lots of nerve, an excellent messmate’.
However, Captain Robert Falcon Scott was appointed, and among the men he would take to the Antarctic would be the young merchant marine officer Ernest Shackleton for his first trip to the polar regions. De Robeck would go on to have a distinguished career in the Royal Navy and was a prominent naval commander at the Gallipoli landings in Turkey in 1915 during World War I.
In tandem with the book launch at the Library in Kildare was also a fine, carefully curated exhibition of early photography on display, with the title ‘All the Queen’s Men and All the Queen’s Women: the portrait photographs of camp photographer James Frankham Church of the Curragh Camp 1858-1898’. Curated by Michael Rowley, Curragh-based himself, it provides a fascinating insight into early Victorian photography and life around the Curragh Camp in the early Victorian period.
It is well worth a visit and runs at the Kildare Library until 30 May, while David Butler’s is now available in bookshops.
