Inside Athy's new Shackleton Museum

The re-opening of the Shackleton Museum in Athy is set to be in time for this year’s Autumn School, scheduled for 24-26 October, as revealed by Ciaran O’Brien, senior architect with the firm BOFA who are leading this ambitious project.

He led a delegation of colleagues from the Architecture Association of Ireland, as well as a number of interested locals last Saturday morning as a sort of progress report on the 300-year old building.

This planned opening will see the historic resource open within two years of its closure, to facilitate a €10m investment in both the Museum and the historic Emily Square outside.

Tickets for the event had been sold in advance and there were several locals including Francis Taaffe who was representing Museum stalwart Frank.

As readers may remember Frank Snr. was honoured with the Shackleton Medal from the Royals Scottish Geographical Society earlier this month for his sterling work over the years in getting the Museum and Autumn School off the ground and running.

The remaining attendees were architects who were interested in the building’s progress.

Mr O’Brien told those gathered there were about seven more weeks of internal fit-out to be completed and then they could start moving in the artefacts.

One pane in the highly original Shard [or ‘Iceberg’] to the rear of the building was broken during fitting.

The panes have special UVA and cooling properties that will keep the internal temperature manageable for the running of a museum.