Robert Falcon Scott Statue in Christchurch

One of the things that I didn’t do in Ireland, that is now on my ‘next time I’m there list’, is visiting the Dingle Peninsula. I’d heard it’s nothing short of stunning and gorgeous, with thousands of years worth of history. It’s also the place that Irish explorer Tom Crean called home. 

From the small village of Annascaul on the Dingle Peninsula, Tom Crean joined the Royal Navy at the age of 16. By the time he was 24, he found himself on British explorer Robert Falcon Scott’s ship Discovery in his failed attempt to reach the South Pole in 1901. When Scott returned to Antarctica for another attempt at the pole in 1910, Tom Crean once again invited along. In fact, Scott was so impressed with Crean on his initial attempt at the pole, he was one of the first people recruited for the return mission. So, when Scott’s party finally began their march towards the pole in Antarctica in November 1911, Crean was an important part of the polar team. As they marched south with a mix of tractors, dogs and horses, the party grew smaller and smaller as machines broke down, horses and dogs were shot and men were sent back to base camp. Eventually, when the final pole party of 5 was announced and Tom Crean wasn’t included, Scott wrote in his diary that Crean wept with disappointment at the prospect of having to turn back. 

As Crean headed back to the Ross Island base, Scott and his companions pushed to the pole. They arrived on 17 January 1912, only to find that Norwegian Roald Amundsen had beaten them by nearly a month. Utterly devastated, Scott and his party started their long march home in a terrible state. Weak, hungry, low on rations and suffering from frostbite, the five men in Scott’s pole party desperately pushed on for home. The first to die was Edgar Evans followed by Lawrence Oats. On the 19th March the three remaining men of Henry Bowers, Edward Wilson and Robert Scott pitched a tent just 11 miles from the large One Ton Depot. Trapped by a blizzard with little food and even less fuel, the three men sat out the blizzard, they wouldn’t survive. When the tent was finally discovered eight months later, the positions of the bodies suggest Scott was the last to die. His final words written in his journal: For God’s sake look after our people.Tom Crean returned to the Antarctic a third time with Ernest Shackleton’s ill-fated Endurance Expedition in 1914. The Endurance became trapped in ice and the mission became one of survival. They hauled their gear (boat’s included) until the pack ice broke up, sailed to Elephant Island and then four men (including Shackleton and Crean) sailed on to South Georgia Island before trekking across the mountainous landscape to the whaling station at Stromness.

Years later, Crean returned to the Navy until he retired in 1920. In 1938, he became ill with a burst appendix which eventually took his life in July 1938. Today a statue of Tom Crean stands in his hometown of Annascaul, while Robert Falcon Scott is recognised and celebrated all over the world.