Sir, – One hundred years ago, on January 4th, 2012, 270km from the South Pole, Tom Crean turned for Kerry.
His return was ordered by Scott who, with Edgar Evans, Wilson, Bowers and Oates, continued towards the Pole. All the polar party perished on their subsequent return journey. Many argue that Tom Crean’s inclusion in the polar party might have swung the balance of advantage their way; reliably anchoring such conjecture is impossible.
Crean, Lashly and Teddy Evans faced a 1,100km journey back to the ocean. A long unwelcome detour around a large icefall was required when they lost the trail back. Needing to rapidly reach their next food depot they decided to slide uncontrolled – over crevasses – for 600 metres down the icefall. Evans wrote: “How we ever escaped entirely uninjured is beyond me to explain”.
Evans later suffered snow blindness and scurvy, becoming unable to walk.
Crean and Lashly had to haul him, on the sledge, the final 160km of their journey. Effectively out of food, and with 56km to go, Crean went alone to find assistance. Without any survival equipment, he walked to the ocean in 18 hours, arriving in a state of collapse; just ahead of a blizzard, which delayed the rescue party’s departure and would have killed him.
The rescue was successful, and Tom Crean played down the significance of his heroism.
In a rare letter, he wrote: “So it fell to my lot to do the 30 miles for help, and only a couple of biscuits and a stick of chocolate to do it. Well, sir, I was very weak when I reached the hut”.
A lot has changed in the interim; Tom Crean returned to the Antarctic with Shackleton on the Endurance expedition – facing even greater challenges and overcoming more monumental odds.
Do we have his political equivalent today – that might drag our wee perilous nation to safety and make little of its doing? Let us hope so, and while so hoping, remember Tom Crean – with apologies to Daniel O’Connell – the greatest Kerry man not to have won an all Ireland senior football medal. – Yours, etc,