Shackleton Carlow Connections at Carlow County Library

What to Expect

Carlow County Library hosts a short evening talk on Shackleton Carlow Connections on Tuesday 18 August, running from 6:00pm to 6:45pm as part of National Heritage Week 2026. Ernest Shackleton, the Antarctic explorer, was born at Kilkea in County Kildare, and the wider Shackleton family were a Quaker milling dynasty rooted in the south Leinster counties. The talk traces the strands that tie that family to County Carlow, which is the kind of local detail that gets lost behind the Antarctic story.

At forty-five minutes this is a compact evening slot rather than a full lecture, pitched at a general audience with an interest in the county’s connections to a national figure. It is free to attend. The same building carries a busy Heritage Week programme that week, including the Heritage Art Camp for children earlier the same day, the Echoes from The Barrow project across all four library branches, the Kehoe Papers talk on the Thursday lunchtime and the launch of Oliver Whelan’s book on landlords and tenants in County Carlow on the Thursday evening.

Good to Know

• Tuesday 18 August 2026, 6:00pm to 6:45pm.
• Venue: Carlow County Library, Tullow Street, Carlow Town.
• Free of charge.
• Phone Carlow County Library on 059 912 9705 to check whether a place needs to be reserved.
• Part of National Heritage Week 2026, which runs across County Carlow from 15 to 23 August.
• A short talk rather than a full lecture, which makes it easy to combine with something else that evening.
• A talk on Catholic churches and chapels before and after Emancipation runs at Carlow College at 7:00pm the same evening.

Getting There

Carlow County Library is in the Presentation Building on Tullow Street in the centre of Carlow Town, a couple of minutes from the Potato Market and about ten minutes on foot from Carlow railway station on the Dublin Heuston to Waterford line. Drivers should use the Shopping Centre or Potato Market car parks, most of which are free from early evening, rather than looking for a space on Tullow Street itself.