Hello everyone, it's Colin Teague from Reach the World and I'm here to tell you all about my visit to Sir Ernest Shackleton's hometown of Athy, County Kildare, Ireland, home of the Athy Heritage Centre - Shackleton Museum! I came to Ireland to learn more about Sir Ernest Shackleton's childhood and his family's background, but I was also motivated to travel there for personal reasons: My father's family emigrated from Ireland to the U.S.A. in the 1930s and, while I grew up listening to Irish folk music and eating soda bread, I had never been there myself. I learned a lot about my own family's background on this trip, too!
I traveled to Ireland on my way home from the United Kingdom. I flew from London to Ireland's capital city, Dublin; the flight was less than one hour! With roughly one million residents, Dublin is Ireland's largest city, but it is much smaller that mega-cities like New York and London. It is closer in size to other large U.S. cities like Boston and Atlanta. Dublin is very old and beautiful! I arrived at night, so the first thing I noticed were the Christmas lights that adorned every important government building.
