I was telling my girlfriend about tom crean and Shackleton’s expedition to Antarctica,
I’ve been to his little house and pub in the arse hole of no where, 27 men died on the expedition to Antarctica, just another unsung hero from this emerald Isle,
Ireland is a blip.on earth yet everyone knows us ,
I love being Irish.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Crean_(explorer)

11 comments

  2. There is a one man play called Tom Crean, Arctic Explorer, and it is absolutely amazing, if you ever get the chance, go see it, you’ll be enraptured for the full 2 hours and it will fly.

  4. It’s a great story and a very humble man by all accounts. There are a handful of locals who still remember him as “Tom the Pole”, the man who sat with his blackened feet in the river to ease the pain of the frost bite he had suffered on his voyages. It’s also sad that he died at a relatively young age of a mundane medical condition – appendicitis. Good to keep his memory alive.

  5. I was in Oslo last week in the Fram museum, and it was lovely to see him in a few pictures displayed there during the ‘race’ to the South Pole. What a guy.

    Amundsen landed there about a month before Scott and his team arrived on the Terra Nova. The photographs are haunting. Seeing the five men with the Norwegian flag already there, knowing they weren’t the first to arrive and they perished on the journey back is unsettling.

    If you are ever in Norway, and are fascinated by the polar explorations, visit the Fram museum. The husband got me into Crean, and all the other voyages when we first visited 8 years ago that we had to go back during our latest visit. It’s truly facinating stuff.

  6. I wouldn’t call Tom Crean ‘unsung’, there is plenty of his legacy, around the Dingle peninsula especially, along with multiple books, a brewery, and even his pub that he ran still celebrates his legacy.

    Nothing wrong with further celebration of himself though.

  7. No-one died on Shackleton’s expedition, it’s what Shackleton’s most famous for, ensuring everyone survived despite impossible odds.

    “For scientific discovery give me Scott; for speed and efficiency of travel give me Amundsen; but when disaster strikes and all hope is gone, get down on your knees and pray for Shackleton.”

    Sir Raymond Priestly, Antarctic Explorer and Geologist.

  8. Hardly unsung, but perhaps under-popularised and maybe that’s befits the man (and the best spirit) of the Irish people that he represents: strong and reliable in the face of adversity, humorous and a true unwaivering pillar of the team. Tough. I think Ireland will need these characteristics more so than ever in the world we live in, along with the now, and ever present humility, humanity, and spirit of progress.

  9. I heard a story that the tans burst into his pub during the tan war and put him up against the wall and threatened to shoot him, when they were ransacking the pub they found his medals and let him live

  10. I’m literally just out of the Kerry County museum in Tralee to see the exhibition dedicated to Tom Crean. Well worth a visit!

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