Over the course of his career, a number of publications have featured Tim’s articles and in 2017 he decided to utilise his many years of research and study into the life of Tom Crean to compile a biography about Tom Crean. At Gortacurraun, a townland close to Annascaul, Catherine Crean, nee Courtney, gave birth to a child on, or shortly before, 16th February 1877. Church records reveal that the priest, who will have written up numerous church entries at the end of each month, would enter the wrong Christian name for the child born this day. Recorded under the name, Joanna, this child, after accounting for all other possibilities, can be no other than Tom Crean.

In October 1901, Ringarooma sailed to New Zealand to relieve HMS Mildura. It was a journey that would determine the direction of Crean’s life and career. The James Caird however, did survive the ordeal, and the pitifully fatigued men eventually landed their craft on South Georgia on May 10th. The problem was they had landed on the wrong side of the island, and the salvation of the Norwegian whaling stations was still a boat journey of around 130 miles, from where they were, but the Caird which had lost its rudder during the landing, was unseaworthy. Over the following three years, Crean would repeatedly find himself thrust into international incidents in an era when rebellions and battles for territory were commonplace across the countries and islands in an area that stretched from the Arctic to the Antarctic Circles. His funeral was the largest Annascaul had ever witnessed as his family, neighbours, friends and no doubt, a number of former colleagues bade farewell to the Irish Giant.In the land-grabbing days of empire, tensions were high between French and British ships sailing to the outlying islands around Australia, as each sought sovereignty of territory as yet unclaimed by either nation. The particular mission of Ringarooma over the course of the southern hemisphere’s winter period was described as a “punitive mission”. The aim was to subjugate warring tribes of the region. His subsequent display of heroism would come at a time when Crean valued his chances of becoming among the pioneers to negotiate their way to the South Pole.

For many years it was assumed that Crean’s birthdate was 20th July 1877 and this can be sourced to his Naval record. Similar birthdate errors are an anomaly that existed in a number of Naval records of the time yet no reason for the error can be identified.

Discovery

Tom and Ellen would go on to have three children, Mary, Eileen and Kate, the middle child, Kate, suffered from ailments throughout her short life and passed away aged 3 in 1924 soon after she had returned with her parents from a trip to Lourdes as part of the Irish National Pilgrimage. Crean, Garrard and Bowers decided to pitch tents for the night, and unwittingly, they did so on very unstable ice. They awoke during the night to discover the ice was breaking up beneath them. The men were soon adrift on an ice floe, separated from their sledge and equipment, and one of their horses was lost to the dark icy water.