Launch of David Butler's book 'Tom Crean, Irish Antarctic Hero'

Kildare Town Library last Saturday afternoon was the setting for the launch of Kildare native, David Butler’s new graphic novel – ‘Tom Crean: Irish Antarctic Hero’. With text by Michael Smith (the author of the iconic biography of Tom Crean – ‘An Unsung Hero’) and lettering by Louise McSharry, it is published by the O’Brien Press. Butler, who previously illustrated the novel, ‘Shackleton: the Voyage of the James Caird’, spoke at the launch of his novel of his inspiration drawn from the life stories of Ernest Shackleton and Tom Crean. The graphic novel is a medium with which I am not terribly familiar. As a young fellow I eagerly perused the shelves of my local library in search of the latest unread detective novel. In my youth my voracious appetite for reading was easily satisfied and a weekly novel coupled with my daily diet of comics was the extent of my young aspirations for literary appreciation. The local library of the 1950's was a small affair compared to the information emporiums they are today. The Athy library, then based in a small room in the Town Hall, was to my young eyes more than adequate to meet the town's thirst for knowledge. After all it took me ages to decide what book to borrow from the packed shelves which were to be found at the top of the darkened stairs which led from the street directly opposite Mrs. Meehan's chemist shop. The staircase may not indeed have been dark at all but since the local Freemasons Lodge met in a room at the top of the same stairs you can appreciate how a young fellow fed on stories of the secret and "demonic" activities of the brotherhood might well feel that the stairs too was a dark and sinister place. The modern library in Kildare, like that in Athy, is a bright welcoming space and while the book launch was being held there was a buzz about the place as many young children sought out reading materials for the week. Ivan O’Brien, the Managing Director of the O’Brien Press, who published the book, spoke about his publishing house’s own journey into first publishing graphic novels fifteen years ago. It was to him a different way of telling a story and trying to find a perfect balance between text and graphics. He paid tribute to both David Butler and Michael Smith in distilling the story of Tom Crean’s life into a graphic novel, while at the same time maintaining a pace which would engage readers of all ages. He told the audience that books were competing with other media and in reading a graphic novel you are effectively creating a cinema in your own head. The book was launched by Kevin Kenny, a Naas native, who has been prominent in the development of the Shackleton Museum in Athy over the last twenty years. Kevin reminded the audience of the many Kildare connections to Tom Crean’s Polar story, including of course that of Ernest Shackleton who served alongside Crean on Captain Scott’s 1901-1904 Discovery expedition to the Antarctic. Kevin pointed out another Kildare connection to the polar narrative. In 1899 the Naas born Royal Naval Officer John de Robeck was in the running to be appointed leader of the Discovery expedition. Sir Clements Markham, then President of the Royal Geographical Society who was instrumental in organising the expedition, had shortlisted de Robeck describing him as ‘hard as nails, lots of nerve, an excellent mess mate’. However Captain Robert Falcon Scott was appointed and among the men he would take to the Antarctic would be the young merchant marine officer Ernest Shackleton for his first trip to the polar regions. De Robeck would go on to have a distinguished career in the Royal Navy and was a prominent naval commander at the Gallipoli landings in Turkey in 1915 during World War I. In tandem with the book launch at the Library in Kildare there was a fine carefully curated exhibition of early photography on display, with the title ‘All the Queen’s Men and All the Queen’s Women: the portrait photographs of camp photographer James Frankham Church of the Curragh Camp 1858-1898’. Curated by Michael Rowley, Curragh based himself, it provides a fascinating insight into early Victorian photography and life around the Curragh Camp in the early Victorian period. It is well worth a visit and runs at the Kildare Library until 30th May while David Butler’s Tom Crean: Irish Antarctic Hero’ is now available in bookshops.

Visit to Dun Chaoin / Blasket Islands / Annascaul, Co. Kerry

I was in County Kerry last week on a weekend trip organised by the local Heritage Centre, the main purpose of which was to meet members of the Tom Crean Society in Annascaul. Tom Crean you will recall was a colleague of Ernest Shackleton, the Antarctic explorer whose exploits are featured in an exhibition in Athy’s Heritage Centre. Annascaul was the birth place of Tom Crean and the place to where he returned when he retired from the Royal Navy in 1920. It was in the South Pole Inn in Annascaul, Co. Kerry that the Athy visitors met the Tom Crean Society members. It was an appropriate meeting place, given its association with Crean who was landlord of the Inn following his retirement until his death in 1938.

On Friday night Brendan Grunewald, originally from South Africa but now living in Belgium, gave a lecture on “living and working at the South Pole”. Brendan who is a physicist spent 14 months living in the Antarctic in conditions which would tax the bravest and the sanest amongst us. His was a wonderful and well received lecture accompanied by slides which I gather may well be included in the Shackleton Autumn School scheduled for Athy during the October bank holiday weekend.

Saturday morning saw the intrepid would be explorers from Athy and South Kildare venturing on foot across the Kerry landscape to visit sites and places associated with Tom Crean. Our guide was Maeve Kelly of Donegal who is now living in Annascaul from where she operates “Walking Boots Tours”. The montbretia and the fuchsia laden hedges provided a colorful backdrop as the walkers followed the Tom Crean Trail which brought us on his favourite walk as well as to his place of birth and his final resting place. It was a lovely sunny day and would remain as such for most of the day as the men and women from the short-grass county made their way past houses still adorned with the Kerry flag following the recent football match played in Thurles. The Crean family home and where Tom Crean was born was down a narrow country lane and there it stood deserted and somewhat dilapidated. A kindly neighbouring farmer did his best to clear the laneway of cow dung so that visitors could walk with greater ease while the football banter flew between the followers of the vanquished and the spade wielding follower of the victors. The men of the kingdom so long used to success bear their football superiority with a generous display of good humour.

The graveyard where Tom Crean is buried is a small one, perhaps a mile or more away from the village of Annascaul. Bound on one side by a stream it occupies ground which was clearly of even poorer quality than the surrounding fields. Those fields for their part did not, to Kildare eyes at least, seem capable of maintaining more than a handful of sheep and even they were conspicuous by their absence. The boggy ground in which the dead of Annascaul had been laid for generations past had caused a village of pedestal tombs to be erected there. These chest-like tombs whose height are greater than their length encased in concrete or stones the remains of local families. There, in the furthest corner beside the murmuring stream was the tomb which the Antarctic explorer Tom Crean built with his own hands to hold the remains of his family. Resting there with Tom Crean is one of his daughters and his beloved wife.

Later that afternoon we journeyed to Dún Chaoin at the uppermost tip of the Dingle Peninsula to meet up with Kilkea born Michael Delaney who was bringing us on a guided tour of the Great Blasket Island. Michael who has spent 30 years or so teaching in the National School in Dún Chaoin had arranged what for most of us was our first opportunity to set foot on the island which was last occupied in 1953. The Great Blasket is thought to have been first occupied in the 17th century and at one time had a population of about 160 people. The chief livelihood of the islanders was fishing, but emigration, particularly to America, provided an escape route for the younger generation. With only 22 or so remaining on the island in 1950 the island was officially evacuated three years later.

Interest in the Blasket Islands has been nurtured over the years by the writings of islanders such as Muiris O’Suilleabhain, Peig Sayers and Thomas O’Criomhthain. O’Suilleabháin’s “Twenty Years of Growing” and O’Criomhthain “The Island Man” are particularly good examples of Blasket Island literature. As for Peig Sayers work anyone who has had to study her for the Leaving Certificate course generally claims that hers is the literature of depression!

The Great Blasket Island is about three miles by one mile of mountainous land, with that part facing Dún Chaoin Parish holding the remains of the houses which in earlier times made up the village. The ruins of about twenty houses dot the landscape and included amongst them is the Protestant school built in the 1830’s as part of the mission work of the Church of England. There is no Church on the island and there never was one. At one time the Church of Dún Chaoin was visible on a good day from the island and the practice evolved of hanging out a white sheet at the Church door when Mass was being said as a signal to the islanders congregated in the island school. There they said their prayers, participating from afar in the mainland Mass across the sea from them in Dún Chaoin. When the white sheet was taken in they new Mass was over and all then departed to their homes.

The Great Blasket trip was the highlight of the weekend trip to County Kerry and to Michael Delaney goes my thanks for generously sharing his time and his knowledge with his former County Kildare neighbours. On the way home on Sunday we stopped off to visit the County Museum in Tralee, and particularly to see the Antarctic exhibition which is on there and will be for a further few months. It’s a first class exhibition and well worth the visit by anyone interested in the South Pole and especially the exploits of such great men as Scott and Kerry’s own Tom Crean.

Tralee itself is like Athy, a 12th century town founded by the Anglo Normans. There the similarities do not end for we find that it was the Fitzgeralds of Desmond who established the town of Tralee and who founded its Dominican Friary ten years before the Dominicans arrived in Athy. Of course it was the Fitzgeralds of the House of Kildare who were the lords and masters of Athy and South Kildare for centuries past and they with the Fitzgeralds of Desmond were the two main branches of the Geraldine family.

The towns of Tralee and Athy founded 800 years ago by different branches of the same family bear many similarities over the years which I hope to go into at another time. Suffice to say that the names Crean and Shackleton are inextricably linked by their Antarctic journeys with Crean honoured in his native County Kerry and the town of Tralee, while Shackleton is remembered in the town of Athy near to where he was born 126 years ago.

The second Shackleton Autumn School will be held in Athy over the weekend of 24th to 27th October, 2002 and further information in relation to the Shackleton School will be announced by Margaret O’Riordan, Manager of the local Heritage Centre over the next few weeks.