The Government is to support conservation of an Antarctic base used by Irish explorers Sir Ernest Shackleton and Tom Crean which is under threat from the effects of global warming.
Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern has approved €52,500 in grants towards the project which is being spearheaded by the Antarctic Heritage Trust and the New Zealand government.
The hut at Cape Royds on Ross Island has been secured by the Antarctic Heritage Trust, but there are fears for the impact of climate change on this base - and on the Cape Evans hut used by Capt Robert Scott during his British Antarctic (Terra Nova)expedition of 1910-13.
Shackleton recorded his departure in 1908 from Cape Royds as part of the British Antarctic (Nimrod) expedition 1907-9. His men reached a point within 176km (110 miles) of the South Pole before being forced back by blizzards and food shortages.
He is best remembered for his subsequent transantartic expedition of 1914, in which his ship Endurance became trapped in ice. Shackleton, Kerryman Tom Crean and four companions sailed from Elephant Island to South Georgia in a 6.6m lifeboat to get help for their companions.
Mr Ahern said that while Government funding for Cape Royds was "modest in contrast with funding from elsewhere", it would link Ireland to an international project which will "forever honour the memory of two great Irishmen, Ernest Shackleton from Kildare and Tom Crean from Kerry".
Confirmation of the funding is to be announced by President Mary McAleese in Auckland tomorrow, as part of her trip to New Zealand. Mrs McAleese is expected to be presented with framed Shackleton $5 notes from New Zealand, signed by Everest summiteer Edmund Hillary, who will be present at the function.
Mrs McAleese was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Laws at Otago University yesterday midway through her state visit to New Zealand.
Otago has a chair in Irish Studies endowed by Ballybay-born Eamon Cleary whose international business interests include commercial property and farms in the region.
The Dunedin visit began at Natural History New Zealand, the world's most prolific producer of wildlife documentaries after the BBC.