Shackleton Autumn School celebrates landmark year
Mary Deevy, Miriam Taaffe, Irene Bond and Frank Taaffe
THIS year’s Shackleton Autumn School celebrated its 25th anniversary with record crowds to Athy.
This year’s Autumn School was described as a “great success” and was held in the Abbey Hotel over Saturday and Sunday, 25 and 26 of October.
The formal opening of the school took place in the newly opened Shackleton Experience on the previous Friday evening and was performed by Frank Taaffe who founded the school in 2001.
In his opening remarks, Frank welcomed the visitors remarking that their presence each year adds an international dimension to the Shackleton School. A tribute was paid to Bob Headland who as curator of the Scott Polar Research Institute gave enormous help in organising the first Autumn School.
The success of the Shackleton Autumn School over recent years has been due to the work of Kevin Kenny, Seamus Taaffe, Joe Farrell, Mark McLean, Jim McAdam and Sven Habermann.
Their sterling work in making the school an international event of such importance that it is now recognised as the best Polar conference anywhere in the world.
This year the school welcomed visitors from thirteen different countries and saw the largest attendance in Athy since its foundation 25 years ago.
The visitors had the opportunity of visiting the Shackleton Experience and the favourable comments which issued afterwards without exception proved highly complementary.
The lectures were well-attended on Saturday and Sunday by capacity audiences of 140 people.
The lunch on both days was sponsored by Bradbury’s for the lecturers and on Saturday night the Autumn School dinner was held in the Clanard Cour
