Tom Crean – Creating a New Irish Icon

Lecture by

Michael Smith

Thursday October 10 2024

at

8.30pm

in

Clonakilty GAA Club, Ahamilla

Michael Smith, author of the best-selling An Unsung Hero – Tom Crean, recalls the challenge of rescuing Kerry's Antarctic explorer from obscurity and creating an iconic Irish hero. An Unsung Hero is among Ireland's most successful non-fiction books of all time with worldwide sales of over 150,000 copies and has been translated into Chinese, German and Spanish. Tom Crean's story is now included on the curriculum in Irish schools and has inspired other spin-offs including a successful stage play and the Tom Crean Brewery.  

Tom Crean was the unsung hero of Antarctic exploration whose incredible exploits exploring with Captain Scott and Ernest Shackleton were overlooked for 80 years. Crean, who ran away from home as a teenager, served on three expeditions to the Antarctic, spent longer in the ice than either Scott or Shackleton and outlived both men. He was among the last to see Scott alive near the South Pole in 1912 and returned to the ice to bury his frozen body. Crean was also a major figure on Shackleton's Endurance expedition to the Antarctic exactly 100 years ago. But Tom Crean could never speak about his exploits and took his remarkable story to the grave.

Michael Smith

Michael Smith is a best-selling author-historian who wrote An Unsung Hero, the biography of Kerryman Tom Crean. Michael's books have sold over 300,000 copies worldwide and have assisted with the development of films and documentaries. He has appeared on TV and radio and lectured extensively at prestigious venues such as the National Library of Ireland, Royal Society of Irish Antiquarians, National Maritime Museum, Royal Geographical Society, Scott Polar Research Institute, the Princess Grace Memorial Library, Monaco. He has appeared at many Irish literary festivals, including Dublin Festival of History, Dublin Book Festival, Cuirt, West Cork Literary Festival, Writers' Week, Ennis Books, Immrama, Words by the Sea and Mountains to Sea Festival. Michael was an award-winning journalist with The Guardian and The Observer.