Programme
| Updated 11/09/2025 | Friday 24/10/2025 – Sunday 26/10/2025 | Speakers and events. (Subject to change) |
| All weekend | ||
| The Shackleton Experience | Shackleton Autumn School ticket holders | Free access to the new Shackleton Experience through the weekend. See for yourself the results of the redevelopment of Athy Heritage Centre / Shackleton Experience and Emily Square. All feedback welcome. |
| ShackleTown Market | Various | Arts and crafts, food, books – all with a Polar theme. Ciara O’Keeffe, ceramic artistPaul Davies of KINGSBRIDGE BOOKS, second- hand polar book dealer, will be displaying collectable and rare polar books and ephemeraOther exhibitors to be confirmed |
| Exhibition | Burberry – the Evolution of Polar Clothing (to be confirmed) | |
| Friday 24th October | ||
| Morning | Masterclasses – in conjunction with Athy schools and teachers | (events confined to school students)Masterclass with master sculptor, Mark Richards. Other masterclasses to be confirmed/ Primary School – ‘Pick up a penguin’ – learn the skills needed by a young explorer |
| 15:30 – 17:00 | Terror Camp LIVE! At The Shackleton Autumn School | Join Allegra Rosenberg, founder and director of Terror Camp, for a Friday afternoon panel of polar potpourri. Beginning with a hands-on polar printing workshop by artist Josh Taplin, we’ll then be treated to three short presentations. Anna Hofer on Antarctic conspiracies, Fabiënne Tetteroo on Frederick Cook, and Marv White on Adrien de Gerlache’s connection to Shackleton’s Endurance. Allegra will also preview Terror Camp 2025, the fifth annual virtual conference happening shortly after the Autumn School in December.Streamed live from the Shackleton Museum to Terror Camp’s global audience, this programming will show off the best of Terror Camp’s youthful, interdisciplinary, and participatory approach. |
| 19:30 | Opening Event | Formal opening of 25th Shackleton Autumn School by Frank Taaffe, founder of the annual Shackleton Autumn School. Attendees will have ‘access all areas’ to the new Shackleton Experience, and meet the people behind the scenes. |
| Saturday 25th October | ||
| 10.00 | Rory Golden | ‘Exploration runs deep, but not silent’Deep Ocean Exploration is the last frontier on Earth that still captivates us. It is estimated that only around 20% of the oceans have been explored, and 25% mapped. Just as the curious explorers from the 15th century up to the 20th century ventured into the unknown North and South Pole regions, today’s 21st century deep ocean explorers do so with an amazing array of manned and unmanned technology which led to the discoveries of Terra Nova, Endurance and Quest. Rory’s talk will take you from the advent of deep-water imaging and search systems that were inspired by an iceberg, his early diving days, and how he became a deep ocean explorer, with a few Shackleton twists along the way! |
| 10.50 | Tea / Coffee | Time to catchup with others over a tea or coffee. No charge, donations gratefully received. |
| 11:20 | Emma Puranen | ‘For Scientific Discovery, Give Me Scott: Beyond the Glossopteris Fossils‘Science was an important component of the pioneering Antarctic expeditions, and observations recorded in those early days still contribute to current research. Emma combines her love of polar history with post-doctoral research in the field of astrobiology, giving her particular insight into interpreting Robert Falcon Scott’s contribution to polar science. |
| 12:10 | Paul Clammer | ‘Ernest and Emily Shackleton in the Great War’ While Endurance famously sailed south days after the outbreak of the First World War, what Sir Ernest Shackleton did during the conflict after the relief of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition has been relatively unexplored by his biographers. Emily Shackleton’s experiences during this period have remained even more obscure. This talk will lift the lid on the Shackletons at war, from London air raids to Buenos Aires, and the Russian Arctic to the home front in Eastbourne. |
| 13:00 | Lunch | There is a selection of cafes and restaurants and pubs (yes, many do food as well) within walking distance. |
| 14:30 | Holger Köthe | ‘Erich von Drygalski and the Beginnings of German Polar Research’This lecture describes the life of Erich von Drygalski, who shaped German polar research like no other. Holger Köthe, his great-grandson reports on his life’s work, particularly the expeditions to both polar regions. After two expeditions to Greenland in 1891 and 1892/93, he was appointed as leader of the first German South Polar Expedition, which took place from 1901 to 1903. During eleven months of being trapped in the ice, extensive research was carried out, the results of which later culminated in the 20-volume work “Universitas Antarctica.” Highlights of the research included a balloon ascent and a total of seven sleigh explorations, where, among other things, an extinct, heavily eroded volcano was discovered. Scientifically, the expedition was a great success, but the German Kaiser was deeply disappointed, as he had hoped for more visible results. In 1906, Drygalski was appointed as professor at the newly established Geographical Institute of the University of Munich, where he retired in 1935. |
| 15:20 | Tea/Coffee | Take a break, a lot of interesting information so far….and more to come. |
| 15:40 | Carly Eck | ‘Burberry: Dressing Polar Explorers’ Burberry outfitted famed polar explorers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This talk will examine Burberry’s role in polar exploration, including Sir Ernest Shackleton’s expeditions, and will draw parallels between the brand’s founder Thomas Burberry and Shackleton. |
| 16:30 | IceBreakers, curated by Ice Captain, Mark McClean | A regular favourite on the Shackleton Autumn School programme, IceBreakers comprises an eclectic mix of short presentations on relevant topics. The only rules are ‘5 slides in 5 minutes’. The winner with the best combination of interesting topic and entertaining delivery receives the ‘Bob Burton’ IceBreaker award.If you wish to participate in IceBreakers, please email your topic to Sinéad (hello@ShackletonExperience.ie) with subject ‘2025 IceBreakers’. Places are limited, and selected on a first come basis. We will be in touch if you have made the 2025 list. |
| Shackleton Autumn School Dinner | ||
| Sunday 26th October | ||
| 10:00 | Rob Stephenson | ‘Chasing the Aurora; Travels & Researches in Pursuit of the Second Most Famous Antarctic Book of All Time.’An expert review of the story behind the first book published in Antarctica. 100 copies of this unique book were printed on a press brought on Shackleton’s Nimrod expedition.Existing copies are extremely rare, and are much sought after by Antarctic collectors. |
| 10:50 | Tea/Coffee | Check your watch! Did you remember to put it back one hour as Ireland passed into Winter Time (GMT) at 2.00 am this morning. Time to catchup with others over a tea or coffee. |
| 11:20 | Anders Bache | ‘Curating Amundsen – Rethinking a biography’Anders Bache lives and breathes the famous Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen…literally. His day job sees him in as curator in Amundsen’s house, surrounded by a range of artefacts which were part of the daily life of Amundsen. Additional material is constantly being discovered, in the attic, outbuildings, under the floorboards. 100 years on from his pioneering attempt to fly to the North Pole (see here), it is opportune to hear about the person that was Roald Amundsen. |
| 12:10 | Prof. John Sweeney | ‘Climate Change: Why the Poles Matter’An expert view on what is unfolding before our eyes climate-wise, and the relevance of the polar regions as passive and active witnesses. |
| 13:00 | Lunch | Time to get lunch before the afternoon’s activities. Another chance to check out the selection of cafes and restaurants and pubs within walking distance. |
| Sunday Afternoon Smorgasbord | Choice of activity | Your choice of events in an around Athy (times to be announced on the day). Some events are weather permitting and/or limited in number in which case a first come basis will apply.Polar film : TBCWalking tour of Mediaeval Athy, led by Clem Roche / Mark Guernon‘We swam in the Griese and came out dripping!’ – surprise event led by Jonathan Shackleton (numbers limited, swimming gear required)“Curator’s Cut” visit to the new Shackleton Experience with discussions/insights around the exhibits. |
| Sunday Evening, 19:30 | Music / Drama | To be confirmed |
Speaker Biographies
Anders Bache
Anders Bache is an archaeologist and curator and has led the research- and preservation project at Roald Amundsen’s home, Uranienborg, for nearly a decade. With a wide biographical perspective Bache has produced various articles, podcast series, and books based on the collection at Amundsen’s home. His most recent book, published in 2024, was inspired by the discovery of Roald Amundsen’s last passport, and tells the story of Amundsen’s world travels in the last years before his disappearance.bio.
Paul Clammer
Paul Clammer is a writer and editor who grew up near Cambridge, where he was taken to the Scott Polar Research Institute at an impressionable age. He is the guidebook editor for leading polar travel agency Swoop Antarctica, and is currently researching a book about the life of Ernest and Emily Shackleton after the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. He is the author of ‘Black Crown’, a biography of the King of Haiti, Henry Christophe, as well as over 40 guidebooks for Lonely Planet and Bradt Travel Guides.
Carly Eck
Carly Eck is Vice-President and Curator of Brand Archive & Heritage at Burberry, serving as the expert voice on the brand’s storied history. For over a decade, she has played a pivotal role in building and integrating the Burberry archive into the fabric of the brand. Carly holds a BA in Fashion History & Theory from Central Saint Martins and an MA in the History of Design from the Royal College of Art/V&A, specialising in dress. Her expertise spans both the museum and corporate archive worlds, with past experience at institutions such as the Victoria and Albert Museum, Marks & Spencer and private collections. Carly has contributed to publications including the V&A’s ‘London Couture: British Luxury 1923-1975’ (2015). She also wrote the foreword to ‘Burberry’ (Assouline, 2023), the house’s volume. Recognised for her knowledge on polar exploration, she is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.
Rory Golden
Rory Golden is a diver, explorer, and public speaker. He is Chair of the Great Britain and Ireland Chapter of the Explorers Club, and Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society, London.
Rory was head of Virgin Records Ireland for 15 years before leaving to found Flagship Scubadiving Ltd in 1999. As a diver, he rediscovered wrecks off the coast of Ireland. His company provides specialist equipment and services to state agencies, including Navy Divers, Special Forces, Garda Water Unit, Search + Recovery Units, Inland Fisheries and National Monuments diving unit.
Rory has been on seven deep ocean expeditions, including six to Titanic. He was a member of the Bezos Expeditions F-1 Engine Recovery Project that recovered 4 Apollo F-1 rocket engines from 4200 metres in the North Atlantic. He has made three dives in submersibles, including TITAN, to the Titanic wreck site. In 2023 he participated in OceanGate expeditions, and was on the mother ship for the tragic ‘TITAN’ submersible dive. He has spoken at multiple venues and events including a UK tour, Titanic Belfast, The National Museum of Ireland, Belfast Titanic Society, The Explorers Club London, schools and colleges, and Education Outreach programmes.
A lover of the outdoors, he has climbed Mont Blanc and Kilimanjaro. He established Ireland’s first inland dive centre in a flooded slate quarry. He is a regular hiker in Wicklow and Connemara.
The bow section of Titanic, narrated by Rory Golden
Email: Rory Golden
Anna Hofer
Anna Hofer is an undergraduate student of archaeology and folklore at UCD. As the Events Officer of her university’s Archaeological Society, she enjoys bringing people with a passion for the past together.
Her interest in polar history brought her to Dundee where she volunteered aboard RRS Discovery, and she hopes it will someday lead her to even higher latitudes (north or south — she’s not choosy).
Holger Köthe
After studying business informatics, Holger Köthe worked in German industry for eight years, most recently as CFO of a large construction group. He then spent sixteen years consulting for medium-sized German companies in near-insolvency situations, often serving as an interim/crisis manager for these groups. Since 2016, he has been advising larger companies through advisory and supervisory board chairman mandates. At the age of 55, Holger Köthe received part of Erich von Drygalski’s family inheritance from his uncle and has since been intensively involved in genealogical research.
Emma Puranen
Emma Johanna Puranen is a polar researcher primarily interested in histories of science and comparative trajectories of Antarctica and outer space. She has spoken at the Shackleton 150 conference, Terror Camp, and Dundee Heritage Trust and the RSGS’s A Festival of Shackleton, and is the winner of the 2024 Bob Burton Icebreaker Award. While working on her PhD, she proudly served as a member of the Ship’s Crew on the RRS Discovery in Dundee, where she did such glamorous repair and maintenance work as caulking the deck, polishing brass, and dealing with bilgewater. Currently, she is a postdoctoral research associate with the astrobiology group at the Open University. Emma is passionate about introducing new people to the weird and wonderful world of polar history, and you can find her polar writing at glossopteris.blog.
Mark Richards
Mark Richards is a sculptor specialising in fine figurative work. His technique draws on a tradition wherein sculptors receive comprehensive instruction in design, technique and execution and work mainly on commission. He was taught by A J Ayres who, in turn, had worked with Eric Gill. His preference is to work with people and within supportive, creative environments with the often collaborative nature of working with both committees and individuals.
Mark’s works have a worldwide footprint; in Ireland – Nicky Rackard (Wexford), Big Tom (Monaghan), Roger Casement (Dun Laoghaire), ‘Squires’ Gannon (Kildare) and of course his landmark statue of Ernest Shackleton unveiled in Athy, 30th August 2016, the centenary of the rescue of the Endurance crew from Elephant Island.
Allegra Rosenberg (she/her)
Allegra Rosenberg is a writer and editor based in New York City, currently the Community Editor at Atlas Obscura. Her debut nonfiction book, a cultural history of fan culture, is forthcoming from WW Norton. Since 2021 she has been the director of the annual Terror Camp virtual polar fan conference. She recently published “From Antarctica, With Love” a polar love story in The Atavist magazine.
Rob Stephenson
Rob Stephenson attended his first Autumn School in 2006 and has returned every year since. He lives in Peterborough, New Hampshire, and maintains an Antarctic library in an old mill building in the adjoining town of Jaffrey, where he lived for many years. He started collecting Antarcticana in 1969 when he purchased a copy of Cherry-Garrard’s The Worst Journey in the World. He’s strictly ‘monopolar’ in his high latitude interests.
For some years he was a campus planner working for American universities and medical centers, mostly in New England.
He established the Antarctic Circle—an informal international group of scholars and knowledgeable amateurs interested or involved in non-scientific Antarctic studies. He maintains its website www.antarctic-circle-org, now in its 29th year, a non-commercial forum and resource on historical, literary, bibliographical, artistic and cultural aspects of Antarctica and the South Polar regions.
He organized four SouthPole-siums, gatherings of Antarcticans, meeting in New Hampshire, Scotland, Norway and Dublin between 2012 and 2019.
He has collected over many years sites of Antarctic interest outside the Antarctic. These now number in excess of 1,000. He spoke about some of these at a past Autumn School.
He has contributed a few book reviews to Nimrod, the annual Autumn School journal.
A well-known Boston bookseller described him as “not a collector but an accumulator.” At the time he was mildly insulted but soon agreed that that was, indeed, the case. He is now involved in gradually de-accessioning his accumulation.
John Sweeney
Emeritus Professor John Sweeney, at Maynooth University since 1978, received his B.Sc. and PhD in the Meteorology and Climatology of Air Pollution from Glasgow University. He has taught also at a number of universities in North America and Africa and has published over 100 scientific papers and authored/edited/co-authored 4 texts on various aspects of climatology and climate change in Ireland. He has served as President of the Irish Meteorological Society, the Geographical Society of Ireland and An Taisce as well as being the Irish representative on a number of European academic bodies. He has contributed to reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and is also a regular contributor to print and broadcast media on matters related to climate change science and policy.
Josh Taplin (he/they)
Josh is a multidisciplinary artist from Kent, UK whose work centres around traditional illustration and printmaking, in particular linocut. They have exhibited work in London with the Whim-Wham Collective as well as in online exhibitions with the Polar Art Collective (founded by fellow Shackleton Autumn School attendee Sarah Barnard) and currently spend most of their free time reading Polar books, watching movies and holed up in their studio in Faversham, Kent.
Fabiënne Tetteroo (she/her)
Fabiënne Tetteroo has a BA in Art History and an MA in Naval History. Her current research project is the life and career of Captain James Fitzjames of the Franklin Expedition. On the side, she likes to learn about Heroic Age polar explorers such as Dr. Frederick Cook.
Marv White (they/he)
Maeve “Marv” White is a museum-oriented digital communications specialist currently pursuing a Master’s in Library and Information Science at the University of Maryland. In 2024 they created beyondthebelgica.com to document their ongoing attempts at translating publicly-available French-language resources related to the Belgica expedition. Marv is also a cross-disciplinary curator whose work has been published by the Philadelphia ICA, Bryn Mawr College, and Glenstone Museum.
