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Displaying items by tag: Lecture: Shackleton

#LectureShackleton -An illustrated lecture: "Ernest Shackleton's Story - A Hundred Years Later"  by Kevin Kenny will take place on Thursday 12 January 2017 (20:00hrs) at the Poolbeg Yacht & Boat Club, Ringsend, Dublin 4. There will be an entry fee of €5 in aid of the RNLI.

100 years ago, Shackleton led one of the greatest ever feats of seafaring with a six person crew in a 22 foot open boat; it is even more astounding that half of the crew was Irish.

Kevin will tell Shackleton’s inspiring story, his family, his character, his expeditions, and his strong Irish connections. Bring warm clothes – we have to cross the Antarctic Circle five times!

About the Lecturer: As a teenager, Kevin Kenny bought a secondhand copy of Treasure Island, only to stumble across a pagemarker from Ernest Shackleton to Jacobs thanking them for supplying biscuits to his Nimrod expedition. Shackleton was the right person in the right place for Kevin, and has been a travelling companion since.

Shortly afterwards, Kevin became involved in an initiative in Athy Co. Kildare which was using Shackleton as a basis for building pride in local heritage. Since then, Athy has been to the fore in reclaiming Shackleton for Ireland. Shackleton’s character had lent itself to a wide range of projects, ranging from the internationally acclaimed Shackleton Autumn School to a transition year leadership/teamwork programme.

Kevin learned his sailing, and made many friends, through Glenans at Collanmore and Baltimore. Anyone with an interest in sailing cannot fail to be interested in the heroic age of exploration and the significant contribution made by Shackleton and other Irish players.

 

Published in News Update

Coastal Notes Coastal Notes covers a broad spectrum of stories, events and developments in which some can be quirky and local in nature, while other stories are of national importance and are on-going, but whatever they are about, they need to be told.

Stories can be diverse and they can be influential, albeit some are more subtle than others in nature, while other events can be immediately felt. No more so felt, is firstly to those living along the coastal rim and rural isolated communities. Here the impact poses is increased to those directly linked with the sea, where daily lives are made from earning an income ashore and within coastal waters.

The topics in Coastal Notes can also be about the rare finding of sea-life creatures, a historic shipwreck lost to the passage of time and which has yet many a secret to tell. A trawler's net caught hauling more than fish but cannon balls dating to the Napoleonic era.

Also focusing the attention of Coastal Notes, are the maritime museums which are of national importance to maintaining access and knowledge of historical exhibits for future generations.

Equally to keep an eye on the present day, with activities of existing and planned projects in the pipeline from the wind and wave renewables sector and those of the energy exploration industry.

In addition Coastal Notes has many more angles to cover, be it the weekend boat leisure user taking a sedate cruise off a long straight beach on the coast beach and making a friend with a feathered companion along the way.

In complete contrast is to those who harvest the sea, using small boats based in harbours where infrastructure and safety poses an issue, before they set off to ply their trade at the foot of our highest sea cliffs along the rugged wild western seaboard.

It's all there, as Coastal Notes tells the stories that are arguably as varied to the environment from which they came from and indeed which shape people's interaction with the surrounding environment that is the natural world and our relationship with the sea.