Ice to be here: Aussie celebrates citizenship ceremony in Antarctic

Irish-born Michael Keating-Kearney will celebrate his Australia Day and citizenship ceremony in the frozen south of the planet.

Irish-born Michael Keating-Kearney at the Casey Research Facility in Antarctica. Picture: Dominic Hall

Cricket, a few beers, and some chill-out time in the jacuzzi.

You could not ask for a more typical Australia Day … except ­Michael Keating-Kearney will be experiencing it all while surrounded by icebergs in Antarctica.

The Irishman is set to become the newest Australian citizen — and one of its most remote — on January 26, in one of the most ­extreme citizenship ceremonies on the planet when he is sworn in from the nation’s southernmost territory. “I’ll pledge my allegiance to the flag, to the state, and shake Justin, the deputy station leader’s hand,” the 35-year-old said.

“Justin’s super excited, he’s never been to a citizenship ceremony in Antarctica either.”

Mr Keating-Kearney, who comes from county Limerick in Ireland, has spent the better part of the past nine years in Australia, after moving over for love.

“The main reason I came to Australia was to be with my ­missus,” he said.

“I love her. She’s still back in Sydney at the moment. She’s finding it a lot tougher back there.”

The carpenter said he was ­excited for the opportunity to become an Australian citizen on the rocky shores of Antarctica, a long way from his home, girlfriend and cats in Sydney.

“I really like the culture and the people and the whole attitude in Australia, and people will always be there for you if there’s something going on,” he said.

“It feels very, very good just to know that I’m going to be getting an Australian citizenship in such an isolated beautiful place.”

In a continent with no trees, he said there was still plenty of work to be done for a carpenter. “It’s like a picture every time you walk out to work; you can see the icebergs out in the distance as they’re sailing by,” he said from Casey research base, one of Australia’s three on the continent.

“We go out on field trips to peninsulas or field huts where we stay overnight and then we go for walks and look at Antarctica.”

He said flying over the frozen continent for the first time was an unforgettable sight, with a sea of white in all directions.

“It looks like clouds underneath but all you can see are cracks with water underneath,” he said.

“When we first got out of the plane, it was like getting hit in the face by the cold.”

The local runway, which is 70km inland, is usable only in cold weather as it can melt.

“We don’t have any planes coming now because the runway is too wet to land on,” Mr Keating-Kearney said.

He is almost three months into his 12-month posting at the isolated base, with about 100 other ­people. Over winter, he and 28 others will bunker down during the extreme cold weather that will bring up to 3m of snow to the base.

With an outside air temperature of 3C, Mr Keating-Kearney said Friday was a warm summer day in a place where temperatures can fall to minus 40C in winter.

“In the last few days, the sun has slightly gone under the horizon for half an hour,” he said of the endless summer days.