BIO: Ernest Shackleton was born in Kilkea House, Co. Kildare on 15 Feb 1874. His father, Henry Shackleton, was a descendant of Abraham Shackleton, founder of the Quaker school in Ballitore in the 18th century. During the agricultural depression in the late 1870s, the Shackletons moved from Kilkea to Dublin and in 1884 to London. At the age of 16, Ernest was eager to pursue a career at sea and joined the Mercantile Marine as an apprentice. His first experience of polar exploration was as a member of Scott's expedition to the Antarctic in 1901-1903. He led his own expedition to the Antarctic on the whaling ship the "Nimrod" in 1909 and came within 97 miles of reaching the South Pole. In 1914, Shackleton commenced the third trip to the Antarctic when he set sail with his men on the ship "Endurance." On 19 January the ship was ice locked and when crushed in the following October, it had to be abandoned. Shackleton and his men walked across the ice floes on a journey which took five months. When they reached Elephant Island, Shackleton and five companions set off in a small boat for the whaling station of South Georgia Island over 500 miles away. The passage across the rough seas of the Antarctic is one of the most courageous in the history of polar exploration. On May 10, 1916, after reaching land, they made a ten-day overland trip before reaching the whaling station at Stormness. Shackleton finally rescued his men from Elephant Island on 30 August 1916. On January 5, 1922, Shackleton died on his fourth expedition of a heart attack on Georgia Island where he is buried. -- Excerpt, "Irish Roots" 1999 #2