Ireland gives $100,000 to save ice huts

Lady June Hillary (left) presents a framed $5 note signed by Sir Edmund to President Mary McAleese. Photo / Martin Sykes

The Government of Ireland has pledged $100,000 to help restore two historic Antarctic treasures - the century-old huts of explorers Robert Falcon Scott and Sir Ernest Shackleton.

Visiting Irish President Mary McAleese made the surprise announcement yesterday at a fundraising lunch for the New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust in Auckland.

In her address, President McAleese spoke at length of the ties that bind the two countries: ancestral links through immigration, their shared contributions and losses in World War I, and rugby.

She also spoke of the three men - Shackleton from Kildare, Tom Crean from Dingle and Frank Worsley from Akaroa - who tramped 64km in freezing winds to get help after their shipmates became stranded following the ill-fated trip by the vessel Endurance in 1914.

The Antarctic Heritage Trust, which is partly funded by New Zealand, has spent the last three years restoring the Shackleton hut, listed by the World Monuments Fund as one of the world's 100 most endangered heritage sites, but urgent work must now begin on Scott's 1910 hut at nearby Cape Evans.

Trust chairman Paul East, QC, said the pledge was the culmination of a meeting this year between a delegation of Irish MPs and trust patron Sir Edmund Hillary.

The UK government gave the trust $250,000 earlier in the year.

Mr East said the trust had raised about half of the $8 million needed to restore and maintain the two huts.

Rodney Walshe, trustee of the Ireland Fund of New Zealand, had approached the Irish Government early this year following a trip by Sir Edmund and Prime Minister Helen Clark to Antarctica.

Yesterday, Sir Edmund was ill and could not attend the lunch. He was represented by his wife, Lady June. The lunch raised about $30,000.