A FAMOUS KILDARE MAN – SHACKLETON’S GREAT FEAT.
Last night, Wed. 18 May, David Butler (illustrator) and Gavin McCumiskey (writer) launched their superb Graphic Novel Shackleton: The Voyage of the James Caird (published by Collins Press) in Athy Heritage Centre. It was launched by explorer Jonathan Shackleton, descendant of the intrepid explorer. Jonathan had returned from Antarctica where he had flown a Kildare Flag gifted by Kildare Co. Council at Shackleton’s Grave in Grytviken Cemetery, South Georgia and Point Wild on Elephant Island (note and pictures on EHistory). Last night he returned the flag to Director of Services, Peter Minnock on behalf of Kildare Co. Council who in turn presented it to Frank Taaffe of Athy Heritage Centre and Shackleton Committee to be add to the Shackleton Exhibition in Athy. A historic occasion on so many levels.
Peter Minnock, Director of Services, Kildare Co. Council, David Butler, Gavin McCumiskey, Jonathan Shackleton and Frank Taaffe
We publish here an article on Shackleton the Kildareman from the Kildare Observer of 1909 and an image of the entry from the English Census for Susses in 1901 of the Dorman household (Ernest married Emily in 1904) where he was a visitor on the night of the Census. Obviously he was asked where he was born and the entry records not Ireland merely, but Kildare as well; not Kildare merely but Ireland as well.
1901 Census -England, Sussex
Kildare Observer 17 April 1909
A FAMOUS KILDARE MAN
SOUTH POLE RECORD.
LIEUT. SHACKLETON’S GREAT FEAT.
Lieut. E. H. Shackleton, the Antarctic hero, who has succeeded in breaking all records of previous explorers in the attempt to reach the South Pole is, it is interesting to note, a County Kildare man, having been born at Kilkea, in the southern end of the county, and the descendent of a former well-known resident of the same district. The expedition commanded by Lieut. Shackleton, reached latitude 88deg. 23 min., only 111 miles from the South Pole. Captain Cook was the first to cross the South Polar Circle, and in January, 1774, reached his highest latitude 71 degs. 10 mins. This is not Lieut. Shackleton’s first voyage of exploration. On January 1st. 1903, Capt. R. F. Scott, accompanied by Lieutenant Shackleton, sledged southward along the coast of Victoria Land, and carried the British flag to 82 degs. 17 mins. – 470 miles from the South Pole – the highest southern latitude attained up to Lieut. Shackleton’s present achievement. The expedition which has just concluded with such honour to the brave Irishman, was organised from Scotland, and left more than eighteen months ago. Its success will earn for its director an enviable niche in the Temple of Fame – high up, indeed, amongst the greatest and most daring explorers the world has ever known. The Shackleton family, of which the present hero is such an illustrious scion, has for close on 200 years played an important part in the life of County Kildare. In 1726 Mr. Shackleton, a learned Yorkshireman, came to Kildare, and in the southern end of the county – at Ballytore – established a school which soon became famous, and is, perhaps, best remembered historically in our own time as the early Alma Mater of that great Irishman, Edmund Burke, the eminent statesman and political philosopher, and which he only left when entering Trinity College.
THE SHACKLETONS OF BALLYTORE
John Morley, in his “Edmund Burke – an Historical Study” says: – “In 1741 he was sent to school at Ballytore, a village some thirty miles away from Dublin, where Abraham Shackleton, a Quaker from Yorkshire had established himself fifteen years before, and had earned a wide reputation as a successful teacher and a good man. According to Burke, he richly deserved this high character. It was Abraham Shackleton that he always professed to owe whatever gain had come to him from his education. If I am anything, he said years afterwards, it is the education I had there that has made me so. His master’s skill as a teacher did not impress him more than the example which he was every day setting before him of uprightness and simplicity of heart. Thirty years later, when Burke heard the news of Shackleton’s death (1771) ‘I had a true honour and affection’ he wrote ‘for that excellent man. I feel something like a satisfaction in the midst of my concern that I was fortunate enough to have him under my roof before his departure.’ No man has ever had a deeper or more tender reverence than Burke for the homely goodness, simply purity, and all the pieties of life: it may well be that this natural predisposition of all characters at once so genial and so serious as his was finally stamped in him by his first schoolmaster. It is true that he was only two years at Ballytore, but two years at that plastic time often builds up habits in the mind that all the rest of a life is unable to pull down.” Burke says again that Abraham Shackleton “was, indeed, a man of singular piety, rectitude and virtue, and he had along with these qualities a native elegance of manners which nothing but genuine good nature and unaffected simplicity of heart can give.”
In 1769 he paid a visit to Burke at his country house at Beaconsfield. His own house in Ballytore was called Griesemount, but the present building of that name, though begun in his time, was completed after he resigned the mastership in 1756. He died on 24th June, 1771, and was buried in Ballytore, leaving a son Richard, and a daughter. Richard was educated at the school, and was contemporary there of Edmund Burke. They became life-long friends. Going, like Burke himself, to Trinity College, Richard Shackleton in 1756 succeeded his father as master. He paid a visit to Burke nearly every year and sixty-four letters from Burke to him were printed in the “Leadbetter Papers.”
A DIFFERENCE
In 1770 the two friends had a difference, when a short account of Burke’s family and education, written by Richard Shackleton, accidentally found its way into the newspapers. “I am sure,” wrote Burke, “I have nothing in my family, my circumstances, or my conduct, that an honest man ought to be ashamed of.” Shackleton explained how the accident had occurred and how much he regretted the publication. Burke a kind letter in reply, and their friendship was uninterrupted.
Richard Shackleton, who was succeeded in the school by his son Abraham, died in 1792. Burke wrote: – “Indeed we have had a loss. I console myself under it by going over the virtues of my old friend, of which I believe I am one of the earliest witnesses and the most warm admirers and lovers.” He had the portrait of his friend painted by Richard Serson.
John Morley is again worth quoting. Regarding the attachment that sprung between Richard Shackleton and Edmund Burke he writes as follows: – “Many tears were shed when the two boys parted at Ballytore, and they kept up their intimacy by steady correspondence. They discuss the everlasting dispute as to the ultimate fate of those who never heard the saving name of Christ. They sent one another copies of verses, and Burke prays for Shackleton’s judgement on an invocation of his new poem to beauteous nymphs who haunt the dusky wood, which hangs recumbent over crystal flood. Burke is warmed by Shackleton to endeavour to live according to the rules of the Gospel, and he humbly accepts the good advice with the deprecatory plea that in a town it is difficult to sit down to think seriously: it is easier, he says, to follow the rules of the Gospel than at Trinity College, Dublin.”
LIEUT. SHACKLETON’S PERFORMANCE
In these days of quick travelling facilities the total area cover by Lieut. Shackleton and his companions in 126 days – 1708 – may seem rather commonplace. When we remember, however, that the distance covered was not over steam-rolled roads, but over huge mountains, across icy, illimitable wastes, and in face of conditions which would have discountenanced and appalled men of less dogged nature and physical endurance than the daring Irishman and his comrades, their record assumes much more creditable proportions in our minds. That of all the nations of the earth it should be reserved for an Irishman to penetrate furthest south is, indeed, something of which his countrymen may feel proud.
[typed by Jennifer O’Connor]
