Tom Crean

Kerryman, Tom Crean enlisted in the Royal Navy in 1893 at the age of sixteen; joining a ships crew that was anchored in Minard, four miles from Annascaul.

His uneventful Navy career eventually carried him south to icy Antarctica, serving under Scott and later Shackleton during the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. His actions and endeavors in these expeditions earned him a reputation as a tough and dependable polar traveller. He accomplished all this without a formal education (imagine what he might have done had he the opportunity to earn a bachelors degree!)

It was there, in the deadly frozen wastes of Antarctica that he proved himself to be a survivor, a friend and a hero.

Tom Crean

Born in Annascaul, Ireland in 1877, Tom Crean (M.Smith's book An Unsung Hero) enlisted in the Royal Navy in 1893 and was serving in New Zealand when Scott's British National Antarctic Expedition passed through en route for McMurdo Sound, Antarctica. As further British expeditions, Scott's British Antarctic (Terra Nova) Expedition, in which he sledged to the polar plateau, and Shackleton's Imperial Tran-Antarctic (Endurance) Expedition, in which he was given charge of the dog teams, drifted on the pack ice of the Weddell Sea and took part in the epic open-boat journey to South Georgia.

Read More about Tom Crean, www.annascaul.net