A night of culture
WITH 48 events sprinkled around the county, this month’s culture night is Kerry’s most extensive yet. Venues range from the intimate ‘An Lab’ in DIngle, to the open setting of Tralee’s Square and the ground of Killarney House, as the county soaked in a blend of music, dance, film, visual arts and more. IT’S been an important year for devotees of the unbreakable Tom Crean; a century ago, the Annascaul man was among the first men to cross the polar island of South Georgia, and in 2016 his followers observed the centenary with class.
Crises plagued Crean and the Endurance crew throughout their expedition. Pack ice on the Weddell Sea gripped, crushed and sunk their boat, and after months camped on floating ice, the men were forced to embark on a perilous lifeboat journey to dry land.
The crew eventually came ashore at Elephant Island, a miserable rock plonked between Antarctica and South America. The desolate island could only provide temporary refuge, and Shackleton chose his strongest men to traverse the brutal Southern Ocean in search of help. The elite selection included Crean, and five years on from trudging 35 miles in sub-zero temperatures to save William Lashley and Edward Evans, the Kerry explorer had to summon his heroism once more to rescue the crew members stranded on Elephant Island.
The men sailed to South Georgia aboard the tiny, sealskin-decked James Caird, before struggling over the Island’s raw terrain. Though stalked by danger at all times, the James Caird crew was ultimately successful in finding help, and a boat was sent out to save the 22 men waiting tensely on Elephant Island.
A century on, Crean’s granddaughter, Kenmare restaurateur Aileen CreanO’Brien, realised a life-long dream by visiting South Georgia with her partner Bill Shepherd, sons Cian and Morgan, and mountain leaders Stephen Venables and ‘Crag’ Jones. After a year of strenuous training, the team attempted to honour Crean by traversing the island, and Aileen recalls her awe on the Pelagic boat as a land sewn into her family’s history bloomed into view.
“It took us five days to boat from the Falklands to South Georgia. We’d been staring out at nothing for the trip’s duration before this fantastic place appeared seemingly from nowhere,” she said.
“The place was rich in wildlife, including albatrosses, penguins and seals, and those days we spent acclimatising before embarking on our mission were otherworldly.”
Aileen sadly did not cross South Georgia; she had to be boated back to the Falklands after a nasty accident left her with a broken leg. The rest of the team finished the challenge, but while Aileen was disappointed not to have emulated her grandfather by conquering the route, she describes her winter adventure as ‘ the experience of a lifetime.’
“We got a sense of what Tom and the crew went through,” she said.
“Temperatures plummeted to minus 15 degrees at night, and the experience was tough even though we could snuggle into warm sleeping bags at night, as opposed to the damp reindeer hide covers Shackleton’s crew had to use.
“It took us five days to get from the Falklands to South Georgia in a 55-foot boat with a motor, but Tom had to face the same journey on a much smaller, less durable boat. It makes you think.”
Aileen agrees with other well-known Crean aficionados like Eileen Percival and Tim Foley that more should be done to honour the explorer, but she thinks people are at least more aware of Crean now.
“I think this centenary was lost amid the 1916 celebration, unfortunately, but school kids today know much more about Tom Crean than they did in my school days,” she enthused.
“Michael Smith’s excellent book ‘Ice Man’ is now on the school curriculum, and when kids come into my restaurant in Kenmare and meet close relatives of his, it makes the man more tangible for them.
“They realise Tom Crean wasn’t a figure from centuries ago; he’s a hero whose exploits were relatively recent.”