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THE TOM CREAN SOCIETY
REMEMBERING A GREAT IRISHMAN AND ANTARCTIC PIONEER
The Tom Crean Society is based in County Kerry, Republic of Ireland, and is devoted to honouring the memory of Tom Crean, one of the outstandingly courageous figures from the Heroic age of Polar travel.
Tom Crean was born in Gurtachrane (Gortacurraun), Annascaul, Co. Kerry on 20 July 1877. He joined the Royal Navy at 15 as a best boy and by 1901 was an Able Seaman in HMS Ringarooma, part of the Royal Navy’s New Zealand Squadron, based in the South Island. At Lyttleton he volunteered for secondment to serve as replacement crew in Scott’s expedition ship Discovery, the first of three expeditions he made to the Antarctic.
On the 1901-4 Discovery expedition Crean won general approval and, amongst other things, clocked up 149 days of sledging. The esteem he was held in is evidenced in the award of the Royal Geographical Society’s Antarctic Silver Medal.
As a member of Scott's next expedition (Terra Nova, 1910-13) Crean was a member of Scott's final support party, accompanying him to the Polar plateau, but was not chosen to join the Polar party. He was one of those who found the bodies of Scott's five man group after their tragic failure to reach the Pole. 'Tom kissed him, covered his body in a blanket of snow, and left him where to he would have wished to be left', his wife Ellen later recalled. Tom Crean himself came within 180 miles of South Pole.
His last expedition was aboard Shackleton's Endurance, as Second Officer. His moment of greatest glory came when he was one of the key members to sail the James Caird with Shackleton to South Georgia, and he accompanied Shackleton and Worsley in the desperate climb across uncharted territory to find help.
Crean's later life was spent at Annascaul, where he opened the South Pole Inn which remains famous to this day. He married Ellen (Nell) Herlihy on 5 September 1917, very soon after returning from Shackleton's Endurance expedition, and they had three daughters, Mary, Kate and Eileen. Kate died at the age of four, and Eileen died in 2004; his daughter Mary Crean O'Brien is his closest surviving relative.
Tom Crean died on 27 July 1938 and was buried at Ballinacourty cemetery, Annascaul.
Read the extended wikipedia biography of Tom Crean
The Tom Crean Society has a website where it is possible to read about Tom Crean and about forthcoming events. In the past they have arranged weekends with lectures and slide shows (all at Tom Crean's pub, the South Pole Inn, at Annascaul); also photographic displays, walks and 'banquet' dinners in 'true expedition style', as held on the Terra Nova. One midwinter dinner, held on December 12th 2005, was staged on board the Discovery in Dundee, Scotland; and further weekends of Midwinter Celebrations have proved very lively and successful.
The Society has made two trips to Antarctica already, in 2004 and 2006;
the first year they walked in the footsteps of Tom Crean, landing at Cape Cove in King Haakon Bay, climbing to the Shackleton Gap, and visiting Grytviken the final resting place of Shackleton. However their ship, Polar Star, hit a rock in King Haakon Bay, was badly damaged and had to make a hasty return to Ushuaia for ship repairs. It was not till Jan-Feb 2006 that the trip was trumphantly completed, visiting the South Orkneys, Elephant Island (Cape Wild) and many splendid sites on or off the Antarctic Peninsula, including Paradise Bay, Port Lockroy, Deception Island and the Lemaire Channel. The Society's latest planned trip, to the majestic Ross Sea, in conjunction with Pat Falvey's 'Beyond Endurance', is now scheduled to go ahead in 2012. 'Ross-Revisited: Voyage to the Historic Huts of Scott and Shackleton' will thus take place exactly 100 years on from Scott's Terra Nova expedition. Further details will be announced soon. On the 2004 trip, the Society proudly presented to Grytviken Museum a superb inscribed boulder in memory of Tom Crean. This memorial stone is now displayed in the library at Grytviken.
Celebrating Irish Polar Explorers: over recent years, corresponding with the centenaries of Scott's Terra Nova (1910-1913) and Shackleton's Endurance (1914-16), on both of which Tom Crean served, members of the Tom Crean Society have set out to raise awareness of the involvement of Irishmen and of Irish connections during the Heroic age of Antarctic exploration.
The Society has also been involved in celebrating Crean in the Arts.
The Tom Crean Symphony: in recent years the Society commissioned Rachel Holstead of Lispole, Co. Kerry to write a symphony in honour of Tom Crean, with funding from the Arts Council Ireland. The composer visited the Antarctic beforehand on the Society's second trip in 2005 with Marie Kennedy, proprietor of the Old Anchor guest house in Annascaul and a leading light of the Society, and other Tom Crean enthusiast, carefully taking detailed sound recordings and photographs.
A Tom Crean Play: a play has been written by Frances Kay for the awardwinning and nationally acclaimed Team Educational Theatre Company, featuring Tom Crean as one of the main characters. The play is called Last Call and is written to encourage students (especially Primary and Post-Primary ages) to connect with their own ideals – not simply morals which guide their everyday lives but the ultimate ideals that make us choose to do extraordinary things and survive against terrible odds.
The Radio Play: Tom Crean and the Terra Nova expedition was also broadcast on Radio Kerry in 2009. And Tom Crean: Sailor on Ice, poet David Hirzel's book about Tom Crean and the Discovery expedition is also available as an online audiodrama/podcast, featuring David Maciver as Tom Crean, April Sadowski as Mary Crean, Clive Saunders as Captain Scott, Stevie K Farnaby as Frank Wild and Brian Bedard as Shackleton.
The Tom Crean Society has also shown keen interest in Aidan Dooley's multi-award-winning one man show Tom Crean - Antarctic Explorer, which has won high praise wherever it is seen, both in the Ireland and the UK: the play, a brilliant two hour monologue, was originally written by Aidan for the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, London, in 2008, and is scrupulously based on known facts about Tom Crean.
Another development initially welcomed, was the interest shown in Tom Crean by RTE television. RTE's Chief News Reporter Charlie Bird went to Kerry to interview Crean's surviving daughter, Mary Crean O'Brien, for his 2011 Charlie Bird Explores series.
Visit RTE to read about the Tom Crean programme and watch significant extracts
Read the RTE biography of Tom Crean
This was followed by the real thing: Bird trekking to the frozen Antarctic wastes following, as it were, in the footsteps of Crean. It came as the culmination of a long-held desire by Bird to make a film celebrating Crean's achievements: an initial attempt fell through in the 1980s. Charlie Bird set out with an RTE camera crew in November 2010, 'travelling by skis, cross-country, for 100 miles or so to the magnetic pole to complete the journey that Crean wasn't allowed to. Thankfully we're able to celebrate his exploits today unlike in the 1920s and 30's when his Royal Navy past would not have been very popular in Kerry. It's great to see his story on today's curriculum and how the people of Kerry celebrate him today, through the efforts of Kerry County Council and Kerry County Museum for example. We have to remember that the journey can be undertaken relatively safely today only by standing on the shoulders of giants like Crean!' Sadly, Bird's documentary earned a scornful reception from the Irish Press.
The website naturally alludes to a most significant event: the unveiling of the Tom Crean statue and the adjacent Tom Crean Memorial Garden in Annascaul. There is also a Tom Crean Business Park supporting new enterprise in nearby Tralee, Co. Kerry.
A Tom Crean memorial walk took in the South Pole Inn, now owned by Tom Kennedy, a Crean relation, and then Minard Castle, where on 10 July 1893 Crean enlisted in the Royal Navy as a boy second class, leaving Minard on a cargo boat bound for Cobh, Co. Cork, and thence to England. Next is Gurtuchrane, where Tom was born the 20 July 1877. Then over the hills overlooking Minard and Annascaul; a separate section, following the ridge to Coolnapogue, yields spectacular views over Annascaul Lake. Thence back to the South Pole Inn. Other more protracted walks in the area, for instance a shorter hill walk over Brackloon Hill near Annascaul, with amazing views of Dingle Bay, Inch Beach and Annascaul valley, continued over several days.
The adventure also encompassed the Kerry Museum. This is particularly because the Museum now has a Tom Crean Room, with mementoes of the legendary figure, including his medals and awards, not least for saving the life of Edward Evans on the Terra Nova expedition. For a long time it was not possible to find a local location that was interested, and Crean's family and enthusiasts fought long and hard to interest a suitable venue. Now, happily, the Museum's Tom Crean room provides the perfect setting.
In addition, a Tom Crean Room has been opened at D'Arcy's restaurant at nearby Kenmare, Kerry. The restaurant is run by Tom Crean's granddaughter Aileen d'Arcy. The Tom Crean Room is available for private dining, or for large or medium-sized groups. Capable of seating 30 comfortably, the Tom Crean Room is decorated with images and memorabilia from the life of Ireland’s famous Antarctic explorer; and the website has a superb display of photos relating to Tom Crean and Scott's expeditions.
See the fine library of Tom Crean photos displayed on D'Arcy's website
The Kerryman records that in 1967 Mrs. Ellen Crean, widow of Tom Crean and then 86 years old, still living in Annascaul, loaned a collection of his personal belongings for museum display in Dingle. They included his Albert Medal for saving the life of Lt. Evans (later Lord Mountevans) and medals commemorating Crean's achievements on the Discovery and Endurance Antarctic expeditions.
In 2000 Tom Crean's grandson, Dublin-based Brendan O'Brien, son of Crean's elder daughter Mary Crean O'Brien, of Ballyvelly, Tralee set out on a fascinating trip to re-trace the steps of his grandfather. Brendan joined a Dutch film crew on a voyage to retrace and reconstruct Sir Ernest Shackleton's Endurance expedition, on which Tom Crean served as Second Officer. The expedition planned to travel to all the areas of importance in the story, including Elephant Island and South Georgia.
The most important recent development has been the emergence of three or four books by Michael Smith investigating the life of Irish Antarctic explorers and in particular Tom Crean. These stand as landmarks in the process of spreading the word about this outstanding and valorous figure at the head of Irish Antarctic history. Crean's name now enjoys an importance as never before, honoured in his native land and the world over.
SHACKLETON SHOW PACKS IN THE CROWDS
21ST FEBRUARY 1911 - 21ST FEBRUARY 2011
On 21st February 1911 Sir Ernest Shackleton came home to Dublin to give a lecture in the Rotunda building on his Nimrod Expedition. According to contemporary newspaper reports, the evening attracted a 'large attendance'.
On 21st February 2011 the Shackleton show 'Nearest The South Pole' was staged in the same Rotunda building to celebrate the anniversary, and also attracted a large attendance.
The audience in fact amounted to over 350 people in a room with seating for only 220 people. At the scheduled start time there was such a large crowd outside that the last 130 people had to be let in free, on a standing room only basis. Ernest Shackleton as a great Irish showman himself would no doubt have felt at home and laughed.
The show itself consists of music, lectures and poetry together with readings from contemporary newspaper accounts performed by actors in period dress.
The show has also been performed in the National Concert Hall in Dublin, the Community Centre in Athy and the Arts Centre in Drogheda. Further performances are scheduled for other locations in Ireland later in the year.
Visit the James Caird Society website's Irish page
Bob Headland (Senior Associate of the Scott Polar Research Institute) saw the show as part of the Shackleton Autumn School weekend in October 2010 in Athy. He especially enjoyed the acting and commented as follows:
'I very much enjoyed the presentation. In particular the distinctive ambience of the location was very effectively used by the actors.
'The principle of using contemporary newspaper accounts is always a good one, and perhaps the best way to indicate public opinion at the time. This often demonstrates fascinating comparisons between the thoughts at the time of an occurrence, and those from the present.
Read about Shackleton's background and other details on the Irish page
'It was also good to see an appropriate degree of ironical humour, especially with the benefit of afterthought (indeed almost a century of afterthought). The effort in 'rounding up' appropriate newspaper extracts was certainly worth the impression it provided which, with the music and other things of a multi-media event, made a fascinating conclusion to the themes of a very polar day.'
NEW BOOK ON IRISH ANTARCTIC PIONEERS BY MICHAEL SMITH
FEATURING IRISH POLAR HEROES OF THE PAST AND PRESENT
The life of Timothy McCarthy, the stalwart of the James Caird voyage, is revealed for the first time in Michael Smith's new book about Ireland's great Antarctic explorers - including Sir Ernest Shackleton.
The book is called 'Great Endeavour - Ireland's Antarctic Explorers', and is published by the Collins Press.
It deals with 200 years of Antarctic exploration, starting with Bransfield and Crozier in the early 19th century, moving on to Crean and Shackleton in the 20th, and finally the modern day travellers such as Mike Barry and Pat Falvey.
The book contains the most comprehensive account ever published about the lives of Edward Bransfield, Patrick Keohane, Robert Forde and the McCarthy brothers, Mortimer and Tim, plus many previously unseen photographs.
Details on the publishers website - www.collinspress.ie , or see Michael Smith's own website at www.micksmith.co.uk
Visit the Collins Press website
Visit Michael Smith's website for details of this and other books
10TH ERNEST SHACKLETON AUTUMN SCHOOL OPENS IN ATHY, CO KILDARE
MAJOR SHACKLETON EVENT CELEBRATES ITS FIRST DECADE
The Tenth Ernest Shackleton Autumn School runs from Friday 22 to Monday 25 October 2010 at the Athy Heritage Centre-Museum, County Kildare (not far from the house in Kilkea where Shackleton was born; the family moved to the area in the early part of the 18th Century) .
The Autumn School, the only Polar School held in Ireland, has been a major and one of the most highly successful features in the Shackleton
'Calendar' since it opened at the turn of the present century, and is regularly attended by many of the most eminent figures in the Shackleton and Polar world today.
It provides a forum for discussion and debate on Polar Exploration and the presentation of artistic works and events related to Shackleton and his time.
Read and download the full 10th Shackleton Autumn School brochure in .pdf format
Friday evening, after the official opening, will feature the launch of an important new book by Chet Ross, Lieutenant Nobu Shirase and the Japanese Antarctic Expedition of 1910-12: A bibliography. Nobu Shirase was one of the most significant Antarctic pioneers of the early 20th Century. It is published by Adélie Books.
The annual Shackleton Memorial Lecture that same evening will be given by Fintan O'Toole, Deputy Editor of The Irish Times.
Morning lectures on the Saturday will be 'The last days of the Arctic', by Ragnar Axelsson, and 'The SS Terra Nova (1884-1943) and other Polar exploration ships of the Heroic Age', by Mike Tarver. At l.00 The Hon. Alexandra Shackleton, President of the James Caird Society and the explorer's granddaughter, will unveil a plaque to her grandfather at Athy commissioned under Ireland's National Committee for Science and Engineering Commemorative Plaques scheme.
The afternoon lectures are by Dr. T. H. Baughman ('The Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition') and Chet Ross (on Nobu Shirase's Japanese Expedition). These are followed by the annual dinner, at the Carlton Abbey Hotel.
The Sunday morning lectures will be given by Meredith Hooper ('Uncovering the story of Scott's other expedition') and Prof. David Thomas ('Life inside drifting Antarctic pack-ice'). The Red Tent, a film about the Italian explorer Umberto Nobile, who led the failed 1928 Arctic airship expedition, starring Peter Finch, will be shown that afternoon.
In the late afternoon Bob Headland chairs an Open Forum on Polar matters. And the evening sees an entertainment of music, theatre, poetry and readings relating to Ernest Shackleton and exploration in the Community Arts Centre.
Monday morning sees a field trip to Ballitore, home of Shackleton's ancestress, the renowned educationalist Mary Leadbeater.
On Saturday, Sunday and Monday an exhibition of stunning photographs from the impressive new book The Last Days of the Arctic, published by Polar World and Crymogea, can be viewed. The exhibition runs on until 26 November 2010.
Visit the Polarworld website
INAUGURAL MEETING OF THE FRIENDS OF THE SHACKLETON COLLECTION
MON 18 OCTOBER 2010 AT ATHY, CO KILDARE, IRELAND
The inaugural meeting of the Friends of the Shackleton Collection will take place on Monday 18th October 2010 at 7.30pm at the Heritage Centre Museum.
The object of the Friends is to assist in the development of Athy Heritage Centre:
- As a centre for developing interest in the history of Athy and district.
- Through the Shackleton Autumn School developing interest in Polar exploration, and especially the Life and Achievements of Ernest Shackleton.
- As a centre for the collection, maintenance and display of material relating to the history of Athy and district.
Membership is open to any person or body wishing to support the objectives of the Friends.
visit the Athy Heritage Centre's Shackleton pages
'TOM CREAN'S STORY' AT LIVERPOOL
ONE MAN SHOW REVIVES MEMORIES OF IRELAND'S ANTARCTIC HERO
To accompany the new exhibition in Liverpool of Hurley's extraordinary photographs, Endurance - Shackleton's Antarctic Adventure, running from the widely acclaimed one man theatre show 'Tom Crean's Story' offers the chance to find out out more about the incredible tale behind them.
Ideal for younger and older Shackleton enthusiasts alike, and a particularly entertaining and gripping introduction for children of school age, 'Tom, Crean's Story' will be staged in the first floor performance space of the Merseyside Maritime Museum.
link to the Liverpool Exhibition main site
The dates and times of performance run through October and November 2010 into December, and will be as follows:
Sunday 3 October 1.30, 2.30 and 3.30pm
Saturday 9 October 1.30, 2.30 and 3.30pm
Saturday 16 October 1.30, 2.30 and 3.30pm
Saturday 23 October 1.30, 2.30 and 3.30pm
Wednesday 27 October 1.30, 2.30 and 3.30pm
Saturday 30 October 1.30, 2.30 and 3.30pm
Saturday 6 November 1.30, 2.30 and 3.30pm
Monday 8 November 1.30, 2.30 and 3.30pm
Saturday 13 November 1.30, 2.30 and 3.30pm
Saturday 20 November 1.30, 2.30 and 3.30pm
Saturday 27 November 1.30, 2.30 and 3.30pm
Saturday 4 December 1.30, 2.30 and 3.30pm
Saturday 11 December 2010 1.30, 2.30 and 3.30pm
Not to be missed!
SHACKLETON NEWS : CENTENARY EVENT IN IRELAND
On 14th December 1909 Sir Ernest Shackleton came back to Dublin to give a lecture on his Nimrod Expedition. It was held in what was then the University Buildings on Earlsfort Terrace and is now the National Concert Hall.
On 14th December 2009 the centenary was celebrated at the same location with a special event and a gathering of several members of the extended Shackleton family in Ireland.
The event was well covered in the newspapers and on the main evening news on RTE television. The RTE news coverage included extracts from an interview with Jonathan Shackleton in which he said as follows:
“He got the welcome he deserved. He did say ‘I am coming back to my native country’. He had lived in Ireland until the age of eleven although at that stage he was based in England. But it is fair to say that he was probably deeply heartened by the welcome he got here in Dublin.”
Just like the original event of 14th December 1909 the event of 14th December 2009 was also packed out and was a most successful evening.
Above can be seen several members of the extended Shackleton family in Ireland celebrating the centenary outside the same location. Jonathan Shackleton can be seen displaying a copy of ‘The Heart of the Antarctic’ signed on 14th December 1909 and the group includes John Shackleton and Noel Shackleton. Both John and Noel have been to South Georgia and Noel has completed the crossing of the island.
LAUNCH OF THE TUG 'SHACKLETON'
DUBLIN PORT AUTHORITY HONOURS A GREAT IRISHMAN
On Thursday 25th March the Dublin Port Company launched two new tugs costing six million euro each.
One of the tugs was named ‘Shackleton’ after Sir Ernest Shackleton from Athy, Co Kildare and the other was named ‘Beaufort’ after Sir Francis Beaufort from Navan, Co Meath – two of the most famous Irishmen in the history of seafaring.
The Minister of Transport Mr Noel Dempsey officiated at the launch and his daughter Aisling Dempsey smashed the customary bottle of champagne.
Jonathan Shackleton was a Guest of Honour at the launch and at the subsequent celebratory lunch. Several other members of the extended Shackleton family in Ireland were also invited including Noel Shackleton. Noel still lives and farms in Dunlavin, Co Wicklow less than twenty miles from the family home of Ernest Shackleton near Athy, Co Kildare.
SHACKLETON - AN IRISHMAN TO THE CORE
BACKGROUND AND BEGINNINGS OF A GREAT EXPLORER
Ernest Shackleton was born on 15 February 1974 at Kilkea House, near the town of Athy in Co. Kildare, Ireland. He was the son of Henry Shackleton and Henrietta Gavan.
On his father's side, the Shackletons had lived in County Kildare since the 1720s. On his mother's side, the Gavans and the Fitzmaurices had lived in Ireland since the twelfth century.
These excellent photographs (supplied courtesy of Neale Webb, who also furnished the introductory text) show the farmhouse where Shackleton was born as it is today. The front porch is a recent addition; but otherwise the exterior of the farmhouse is largely unchanged.
Ernest was born in the back bedroom on the left - the window is the one below the red guttering.
The glorious views of the surrounding countryside - including historic Kilkea Castle across the fields and distant hills - would be much the same as the views Shackleton drank in during his early childhood.
In 1880, when Ernest was six years old, the family moved to 35 Marlborough Road in Dublin, while his father studied Medicine at Trinity College, Dublin. A two-storey red-brick house with basement on the southern side of the city, it was part of a new development erected a decade earlier on outlying green belt near the (then) village of Donnybrook.
A plaque commemorating the Irish explorer has recent been put up outside no. 35, but the back garden would be much the same as when Ernest played there at the ages of six to ten with friends and younger members of the family. (On one occasion, Jonathan Shackleton tells us in his splendid book Shackleton: An Irishman in Antarctica, he famously dug a gaping hole in the garden and announced that he was digging his way to Australia.)
Read about the Shackleton family's biographer in Ireland, Jonathan Shackleton
Obtain a copy of Jonathan Shackleton's book on Shackleton
Ernest Shackleton never lost his deep love for Ireland and the people he grew up amongst - indeed on several occasions in later life he had no hesitation at all in describing himself as an Irishman. Naturally one of those was the occasion when, following his almost successful Nimrod expedition in 1907-9, he returned to his native land to give a lecture entitled "Nearest the South Pole" at 8 p.m. on Tuesday December 14th 1909 in the large hall of the National University, Earlsfort Terrace, under the chairmanship of the Lord Lieutenant, surveying the achievements of the 1907-9 trek in a talk full of interest and peppered with lively remarks, which drew much laughter and merriment.
Prior to that lecture he was entertained to lunch by members of the Corinthian Club in the Aberdeen Hall, Gresham Hotel. If Shackleton had now actually discovered the South Pole he, an Irishman whose achievements were compared to those of McLure (the discoverer of the North West Passage) and McClintock, had shown others the way there, and he would always be regarded as, at all events, the virtual discoverer of the South Pole. It was particularly appreciated that the proceeds raised by Shackleton's lecture were donated to Lady Dudley's Nursing Scheme.
A further lecture was given at the Round Room, the Rotunda on Tuesday 21 February 1911, an occasion on which he expressed the hope that Captain Scott's forthcoming expedition of that same year would achieve the objective he himself had not quite managed in 1909.
Shackleton's fame was later to be saddled with another murkier episode in Irish history, when it emerged in 1914 that Frank Shackleton, his younger brother by two years, was accused of association with the theft in July 1907 of the Irish crown jewels - a matter that was not fully resolved when the Endurance set sail, and the truth of which has to some extent not been fully resolved or ascertained yet.
However in 1914 began another adventure which wrote Shackleton's and Ireland's name in the annals of heroism, for when Shackleton embarked on his Endurance expedition he took with him two other Irishmen who were to prove vital to the group's survival. They were Tom Crean and Tim McCarthy, both of whom travelled aboard the James Caird. Three of the men in the small boat were Irish by birth, one was a New Zealander, one English, and one a Scot.
The predominance of Irish blood aboard the James Caird for that historic rescue journey was yet another thing which has given Irishmen everywhere tremendous pride in Shackleton and his achievements, as being indeed, from the outset, 'one of us'.
Indeed stories abound of Shackleton's Irishness, and his willingness to vaunt the fact. One senior English civil servant did not see that as entirely an advantage: "I happened to go out to India with Lieutenant Shackleton, a feckless Irishman...."
But others knew better. Louis Bernacchi, who travelled with Ernest on Scott's Discovery expedition, wrote that "Just as in his former ships, Shackleton was the life and soul of the Discovery. His mind was alert, his good humour inexhaustible.... In his deep Irish voice he could wheedle and coax; successfully, if he wanted something, which he generally did. ...Shackleton was the poet,...and in his wheedling Irish manner he kept me from my bunk reciting endless verses." In her life of Captain Scott (1977), Elspeth Huxley refers to "Shackleton's Irish volubility and his habit of quoting thick slabs of poetry." Wilson, she says "admired the Irishman's witty sparkling conversation and remarkable memory, from which an anecdote could be extracted at any moment to suit any occasion."
Shackleton's wife Emily (Lady Shackleton) took a more cautious view: "Although Ernest called himself Irish, one of (his sisters) once said to me, "We were never Irish until mother (Henrietta Shackleton) married into the family." The Dublin Evening Telegraph of 24 March 1909, in celebratory mood, had no such doubts: "South Pole almost reached by an Irishman," ran the headline. Many would echo that. Indeed from his earliest days in London, he was always known as 'Mike' or 'Micky' - like Paddy, a classic nickname for an Irish lad, and one by which he continued to be known to his friends in later life.
Sir Arthur Conon Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, was equally forthright when praising Shackleton's achievement at the Royal Societies club in 1909, following the latter's return from his attempt on the South Pole: "Shackleton is an Irishman. As a fellow-Irishman I take pride at the thought. Think of what Ireland has done for the Empire. Finally think of that flag flapping down yonder on the snow filed, planted there by an Irishman."
Shackleton himself concurred: "I am an Irishman, he affirmed on many occasions. He allowed it to enter the official record - on the third attempt to rescue his men from Endurance, now marooned on Elephant Island, he and Tom Crean are both listed in the log of the Emma as Irish. And indeed, it has been said, he had "all the inherent characteristics of the Irishman - cheerful, optimistic, good-natured." To one astute observer, he "shamelessly played on his Irishness. Sometimes he almost seemed like a professional Irishman." His sponsor Dame Janet Stancomb-Wills, another shrewd witness, alludes to his "reckless generosity" in these terms: "I cannot understand why his (presumably) thrifty Quaker forebears did not bestow that gift upon him to counteract the reckless generosity of his Irish ancestry."
Such national pride in one of her greatest sons led directly to the launching of the Irish South Aris expedition, of which Frank Nugent was joint leader, and which endeavoured in January 1997 to follow in the great man's footsteps. Although eventually foiled by a Force 10 storm which thrice capsized their boat, this hardy Irish team certainly succeeded in increasing consciousness of Shackleton around the world; while Frank Nugent went on in February l997 to complete a re-enaction of Shackleton's South Georgia traverse from King Haakon Bay to Stromness.
It was also the inspiration for Pat Falvey's 'Beyond Endurance' expeditions, which have given to so many an experience of the challenges of outdoor life and of the Antarctic, including McMurdo Sound and the dramatic island and mainland scenery of the Ross Sea.
Pat Falvey's 'Beyond Endurance' expeditions
visit Pat Falvey's website: adventure breaks, expeditions, conferences, seminars and lectures
Only recently, Pat's team made a celebratory return to Shackleton's 'Furthest South' (88° 23' South), reached by Shackleton, Wild, Marshall and Adams in January 1909. Pat and his men found an appropriate way of toasting their great Irish predecessor.
That raising of awareness of Shackleton worldwide is now also continued by the highly successful annual Shackleton Autumn School, which takes place at Athy, County Kildare, every October half-term, just a mile or two from the house where Sir Ernest Shackleton was born.
The annual autumn Shackleton School at Athy, County Kildare
The Athy Heritage Centre and Shackleton Autumn School
The scale model of 'Endurance' at Athy Heritage Centre-Museum
ERNEST SHACKLETON: THE IRISH BACKGROUND
RICH IRISH ANCESTRY OF THE GREAT POLAR EXPLORER
Ernest Shackleton (1874-1922) was born on 15 February 1874 at Kilkea House near Athy in County Kildare, Ireland, around 50 miles south-west of Dublin.
Christened Ernest Henry, he was the elder son of Henry Shackleton and Henrietta Gavan and the second eldest of ten children: two boys (Ernest Henry and Francis Richard, who was two years younger than Ernest) and eight girls: Gertrude, the oldest child, just over a year older than Ernest; Amy, a year younger; then Ethel and Eleanor, born in 1878-9; then Clara, Helen and Kathleen, all born in the early 1880s; and finally the youngest of the family, Gladys, who arrived in 1887.
Their parents had married in 1872. On their father Henry’s side, the Shackletons had lived in County Kildare since the 1720s. However on their mother Henrietta’s side, the Gavans and the Fitzmaurices had lived in Ireland for 800 years, since the 12th Century. It was, arguably, from the Gavan side that Shackleton's deep-deated Irishness especially derived.
Henry Shackleton's family on Ernest's grandfather Ebenezer's side could also trace its antecedents back to the time of Edward I (one early provenance was, it seems, Northumberland). A distant Shackleton ancestor is credited with fighting in "the wars in Lombardy" - hence the family coat of arms (see below). The Yorkshire branch of the family (the name possibly derives from the area of Halifax and has been thought to mean 'settlement' (-ton) on a spit of land - OE 'scacol') was in the 16th century located at Newsholme, near Gisburn, and later owned property ("Shackleton House") north west of Leeds at Harden, near Bingley, Yorkshire. Indeed there is a Shackleton Farm to this day, although the original building has since been demolished. The family's location in the West Riding of Yorkshire is attested by the genealogy of their mothers: Roger Shackleton (?-1597) married Jenet Sharpe of Bingley; his son John Shackleton (1584-?) married Jenet Clapham of Keighley; his son Roger (1616-77) married Mary Roper and Roger's son Richard (1643-1705) married Sarah Brigg(s) of Keighley. Richard's son Abraham (1696-1771) was to found the Ballitore branch of the family, with which we are concerned, for it was from these that the famous explorer was descended.
It was at Harden that Abraham Shackleton was born on 27 August 1696, the youngest of six children. His father had previously converted to Quakerism, which had begun to emerge after the Civil Wars ended in 1648, and been imprisoned for three years for not attending an Anglican church; and the very year of Abraham's birth their home Shackleton House began to be used as a meeting house.
However Ireland beckoned. When Abraham was just six, his mother Sarah died; his father died just two years later, leaving him, aged 8, and his siblings orphaned; although he remembered his father well and would, according to his granddaughter, frequently mention "the tender concern of his pious father."
At the age of 20 young Abraham sold his Yorkshire inheritance to his brother Roger, then studied Latin and began teaching. In 1720 he made a significant decision, and moved to Ireland, to Ballitore, a village which had been founded by Quakers in 1685. Here he became private tutor to the children of two Quaker families, in neighbouring County Carlow, a few miles to the south.
Quakerism, and education, became for Abraham an undoubted 'calling'. By 1725 he had married Margaret Wilkinson, the niece of his former Yorkshire employer.
In 1726 Abraham Shackleton firmly and proudly established the Shackleton name in Ireland: he opened a Quaker school in Ballitore (Béal Atha an Tuair), south of Kildare near Crookstown, 28 miles from Dublin on the Kilkenny Road and just a few miles north-east of Kilkea, where Ernest, the future explorer would be born a century and a half later.
Abraham died at the age of 74, by which time his son Richard (1726-1792) succeeded him, and Richard's son Abraham (1752-1818) in due course took over the running of the education. Thus the Ballitore school flourished for over a century. One of its most famous alumni was the politican and orator Edmund Burke (1729-97), who studied up there to the age of 15, before proceeding (in 1744) to Trinity College Dublin. "If I am anuything,", Burke later wrote, "it is the education I had there that has made me so." When he heard of Abraham's death in 1771 he wrote, "I had a true honour and affection for that excellent man."
Another of the school's outstanding later pupils was Cardinal Cullen (1803-78), later Archbishop of Dublin (1849-78), Rector of the Irish College, the friend of two Popes (Gregory XVI and Pius IX) and also of a future Pope (Leo XIII).
From these, Ernest's grandfather Ebenezer (1784-1856) and his son Henry Shackleton, Ernest's father (1847-1921), as well as other branches of the family in direct line from Abraham's sister, Deborah (1749-1824)and Ebenezer's brother (i.e. Ernest's great-uncle) George Shackleton (1785-1871), are all descended. They include Jonathan Shackleton and Neale Webb (to both of whom sincere thanks for much of the invaluable information, illustrations and family trees displayed in this article), and are known as the "Ballitore Shackletons".
In the late 1700s while the school still had many years to run the Shackleton family turned to milling; in 1824 Ebenezer Shackleton, purchased Moone mill, a local mill. Moone is part of a cluster of villages in the far south of Co. Kildare, along with Ballitore and Timolin.
Ebenezer Shackleton (himself one of ten children) and his wife Ellen had six sons; Henry, Ernest's father, was the fifth of these and their second from youngest child. Henry and Henrietta Gavan married in 1872 and moved to the farmhouse in Kilkea, County Kildare - a few miles down the road from Ballitore - where their own first child, Ernest, the future explorer, was born in February 1874.
The house is shown as it is today. The front porch was added later, ; but otherwise the exterior is much as Ernest would have remembered it as a small boy.
Six of Henry and Henrietta's children (Gertrude, Ernest, Amy, Frank, Ethel and Eleanor) were born at Kilkea House, a short distance from the hamlet of Kilkea, where Henry, who was brought up a Protestant, initially strove to make a living by farming "in the green, fertile, rolling fields of County Kildare".
As Roland Huntford puts it in his biography of `Shackleton, "Kilkea was a very Irish place. To the east, was a view of the mountains of Wicklow. On a rise lay an Anglo-Norman castle; started in 1180, rebuilt in the 15th century, and now the somewhat tumbledown property of the Duke of Leinster." The views of the surrounding countryside (including historic Kilkea Castle, seen across the fields) would have been much the same when Shackleton was a small boy playing around the house or swimming in the River Griese, which flowed through the farm. On family walks Ernest regularly hung behind, earning the nickname 'Mr. Lag.' On another trip, a visit to cousins in nearby County Carlow, he was fascinated by his first encounter with a penguin skin.
However the idyll of Kilkea and of rural County Kildare eventually had to end. When Ernest was six and the prospects of farming looked less promising for a growing family, Henry Shackleton moved his wife and family to 35 Marlborough Road, a three- storey terraced red brick dwelling in South Dublin, adjacent to the village of Donnybrook - now a prosperous and desirable suburb of the city - where they lived while his father, Henry, was studying medicine at Trinity College, Dublin. Jonathan Shackleton's revealing book Shackleton: An Irishman in Antarctica recounts (p. 26) how 'One of the last things Ernest did at Kilkea House before climbing into the carriage that would take him away from his birthplace was to stand on the fallen tree trunk on the lawn. This had been his ship's cabin for as long as he could remember, the place where he played on summer afternoons and lay long into the evening....'
It was in the Dublin garden that Ernest, began digging a hole which would, he claimed, take him to Australia. He also, with the connivance of a housemaid, dug in search of buried treasure. Much later, putting his passion for Geography and for ships (Marlborough Road's garden frame replaced the tree trunk as his ship's cabin) together, he would reach the Southern Hemisphere by more orthodox means. One of his other greatest delights was to chase after the funerals that passed and join the line of mourners - something he first attempted when they were all still living in Kilkea.
The back garden would doubtless have been much the same when Ernest and his sisters played there. A plaque to Sir Ernest Shackleton has recently been put up on the front of the Marlborough Road house.
Dr. Henry Shackleton qualified as both Bachelor and Doctor of Medicine at Trinity in 1884, and in December of that year, when Ernest was nearly 11, while one of the eight girls (Kathleen) was still a baby and the youngest, Gladys Mabel, had not yet even been born, the Shackleton family with its nine youthful members upped sticks and took ship at Dublin's port of Dun Laoghaire (Kingstown), moving lock, stock and barrel to South Croydon; and six months later to Sydenham, near Dulwich in South London, where his father began a new practice in England.
In September 885 eleven-year-old Ernest, who had previously been educated at home by a governess, became a day boy at Fir Lodge preparatory school.
His first biographer, Hugh Robert Mill, observed "He was now a sturdy, broad-shouldered boy of eleven, full of life and noise, with an accent that, despite the parental care which had refined it by comparison with the brogue of Dublin, struck the ears of Londoners as terribly Irish."
To reflect his Irish accent and temperament (and as the school already boasted a Paddy) he was nicknamed Micky (a name of endearment he later retained). He soon acquired the reputation (as Jonathan Shackleton's book notes) of being 'a brave litle fellow, ready to fight the universe and all therein.' His Irishness stood out: indeed he and a fellow Irish pupil, egged on by classmates, duly engaged in a fight to celebrate St.Patrick's day.
In September 1887, aged 13, Ernest moved on from Fir Lodge to nearby Dulwich College, one of the most respected public day-boarding schools in the south of England, where he stayed till Easter 1890. However his notable lack of academic progress, at least initially, at school - although his restlessness did find useful channels in football, gymn and boxing, which he excelled in - may have had something to do with his being lively and headstrong, and also feeling wrenched from his Irish roots.
"An Irishman in England Shackleton remained for the rest of his days," Huntford concludes. Shackleton himself frequently declared, "I am an Irishman, and I consider myself a true patriot...when I say Ireland should not have Home Rule." It is notable that in the log of the Emma, the Chilean ship in which he made his third rescue attempt, both Shackleton and Tom Crean gave their nationality as 'Irish'; the family crest history (houseofnames.com) alludes to him as a 'famous Irish explorer of the Antarctic.' When he wrote to his wife Emily Dorman, whom he married on 9 April 1904 following his return from the Discovery expedition, he invariably signed himself 'your loving Micky' or just 'Micky'.
Purchase a copy of Shackleton's coat of arms
There is no doubting Shackleton's genuine Irish credentials. Colleagues aboard Discovery, on which Shacketon served during 1901-4, recalled, "Shackleton was the life and soul of the Discovery: his mind was alert, his good humour inexhaustible. In his deep Irish voice he could wheedle and coax: successfully, if he required something, which he usually did."
Other expedition members, such as Dr. Edward Wilson, who was initially very close to Shackleton, appreciated his qualities, such as his Irish volubitiliy, cheerfulness, Irish good-naturedness and optimism, his witty and sparkling conversation, and his gift for an Irish yarn thanks to his remarkable memory, from which "an anecdote could be extracted at any moment to suit any occasion", and whence "derived his habit of quoting thick slabs of poetry from memory."
Others, such as his staunch ally Dame Janet Stancomb-Wills, remarked on "the reckless generosity of his Irish ancestry", "the Irishman's instinctive theatricality," on which he could lean, and perhaps most notably of all his winning confidential manner: "the Irishman's terrible gift of intimacy".
It especially notable that three of the members of the party aboard the James Caird were Irishmen: Ernest Shackleton; first officer Tom Crean; and able seaman Timothy McCarthy, who was tragically killed on 16 March 1917 fighting in the Great War, within six months of returning home from Shackleton's Endurance expedition.
Much of the material for this extended article comes from Jonathan Shackleton's first-rate book about his family and ancestors: Shackleton - An Irishman in Antarctica is meticulously researched and magnificently presented, and contains much early material either not found at all elsewhere, or not easily located in the other Shackleton literature. In a compelling narrative Jonathan reveals the profound influence of Ernest Shackleton's Irish and Quaker antecedents, explores his Irish upbringing in Kildare and Dublin, his time in the Merchant Navy, each of his four Antarctic expeditions, his marriage and love affairs, his life as a public figure and as briefly a politician and the haunting story of his final, fatal expedition in 1921-22 aboard the Quest.
Visit Jonathan Shackleton's family website about Sir Ernest Shackleton
Described by Books Ireland as "A biography full of wit combined with sharp observation of a flawed and troubled, but ultimately great, Irish man. Full marks." Shackleton: An Irishman in Antarctica, written in collaboration with John MacKenna, is available direct from Jonathan Shackleton's website. It was first published in November 2002 in hardback by The Lilliput Press, 62-3 Sitric Road, Arbour Hill, Dublin 7, Ireland (ISBN 1 84351 009 x). 208 pages long, the book is lavishly illustrated with over 100 photographs, maps and engravings, many of them appearing here in print for the first time.
Buy Jonathan Shackleton's book
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![Dinner at the Berkeley Hotel, also 1909 after Nimrod expedition, with Mackellar, Mackintosh (future leade of Aurora party), Forbes, Day, Joyce, Buckley, Shackleton, Wild, Brocklehurst, [Armytage], Marston, J King Davis (Nimrod chief officer), Roberts](pix/Shack dinner Berkeley Hotel 456 333.jpg "Dinner at the Berkeley Hotel, also 1909 after Nimrod expedition, with Mackellar, Mackintosh (future leade of Aurora party), Forbes, Day, Joyce, Buckley, Shackleton, Wild, Brocklehurst, [Armytage], Marston, J King Davis (Nimrod chief officer), Roberts")
 from Dublin.jpg "the great Edmund Burke (1729-1797)")
 249.jpg "Portait of Cardinal Cullen, Archbishop of Dublin 1849-78")
 continued in the milling trade anmd took over Moone Mill, Ballitore in 1824.jpg "Ernest grandfather Ebenezer Shackleton (1784-1856) took over Moone Mill, Ballitore in 1824. Great grandson of the founder (his father was also an Abraham), he had eight siblings: Richard, Margaret (I), Abraham, Betsy, George, Lydia, Mary & Margaret (II)")
 at Fir Lodge Preparatory School 200percent lge 350.jpg "Ernest at Fir Lodge Preparatory School: like the picture at the top of this article, it is one of the very earliest photographs of the explorer")
 360 270.jpg "Jonathan Shackleton pictured at Port Loughroy, Antarctica. He and Bob Headland are in frequent demand as lecturers on the Antarctic")
 225 270.jpg "Jonathan Shackleton on Polar duty.")
