Overview
The old Athy Heritage Centre closed for a full redevelopment and reopened in June 2025 with a new name and a single subject: the Shackleton Experience, given over entirely to the Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton, who was born just outside the town at Kilkea. If you remember the place for its general displays on Athy’s Anglo-Norman past and the Gordon Bennett motor race, fair warning – the museum now tells one story, and tells it hard.
It’s still in the same building: the 18th-century Market House on Emily Square, formerly the town hall, in the centre of what is Ireland’s designated Heritage Town. What’s changed is everything inside.
Inside the Shackleton Experience
This is Ireland’s only museum devoted to Shackleton, and the redevelopment leans on objects rather than text panels. The pieces worth crossing the room for are the real ones: an original sledge and harness carried on his expeditions, and his actual dog-sledge harness. A 15-foot model of the Endurance anchors the gallery that tells the famous story – the ship crushed in the Weddell Sea ice in 1915 and the open-boat journey that followed, on which Shackleton brought every one of his men home alive.
The exhibition is built around that survival story and the leadership it took, rather than mythologising the man. For an extra €5 (€4 booked online) you can take an AR/VR device through the displays, which children tend to get more out of than adults. The visit takes most people an hour to ninety minutes.
The catch is the price. Standard adult admission is €17 (€15 online), which is steep for a museum of this size, and there’s now no general local-history alternative under the same roof – it’s polar exploration or nothing. For Shackleton’s story, told with his own kit in front of you, it earns the ticket; for a broad introduction to Athy, it no longer does that job.
Visitor Information
- Opening hours – Tuesday to Saturday, 10am–5pm, with last admission at 4pm. Closed Sunday, Monday and public holidays, so a weekend trip needs to land on a Saturday.
- Admission – Adult €17 (€15 online); seniors and students €15 (€14.50); children 12–17 €13, 5–11 €11.50, under 5 free; family of two adults and two children €52 (€48 online); an essential carer goes free.
- Accessibility – Level entry and a lift to all floors; suitable for wheelchair users, prams and strollers.
- Café – There’s a small café inside the museum for coffee and light snacks, so you don’t need to head back out for a break.
- Parking – Pay-and-display parking sits directly in front of and behind the museum, with a two-hour maximum stay – fine for a visit, tight if you want to wander the town after. Coach drop-off and parking are available.
- Getting there – By train it’s about 40 minutes from Dublin Heuston and 30 from Kilkenny, with Athy station a short walk or taxi from Emily Square. By road, the museum is minutes from Exit 3 on the M9.
Around Athy
Athy grew up in the mid-13th century around two monasteries on a crossing of the River Barrow, and the town wears that age well. From Emily Square it’s a short walk to the Barrow Way, a flat, well-kept towpath for walking and cycling along the river. The roads south of here were the route of the 1903 Gordon Bennett Cup, the first international motor race held in Ireland – worth knowing if you’re driving the back roads towards Castledermot.
With a car, the Irish National Stud and its Japanese Gardens lie a short drive north, Kilkea Castle – a 15th-century tower house, now a hotel, near where Shackleton was born – sits to the east, and Ballitore preserves its 18th-century Quaker village and schoolhouse.
The smart move is a Saturday late morning: an hour or so with Shackleton, the café for coffee, then the Barrow towpath before you leave town.