From Weekend 1
be left behind. On April 24th, even as Dublin was convulsed in the Rising, he and five others, including Crean and McCarthy set sail, steering north.
They survived gales, a near capsize by ice, loss of their sea anchor, and a gigantic wave. They reached South Georgia's King Haakon Bay on May 10th, knowing that any search party would be looking for them back in the Weddell Sea. Exhausted, three of the six, including Shackleton and Crean, took to the mountains to cross the island. On a 20th "three terrible looking ruffians" were almost turned away from the whaling station at Stromness.
"Tedious chores, the two ship's doctors, a strumming banjo, bad jokes and, above all, trust" are what sustained the other 22 back on Elephant Island, according to one of the expedition historians, Harding Dunnett. When penguins and seals migrated, food ran short. With tears in their eyes, they were forced to eat the dogs - but within minutes found themselves discussing the consistency of the various canine meats.
They read about exotic meals from a penny recipe book, choosing a different menu each night. There were penguin fancying competitions, when stones were placed around potential "beaus". If seaweed didn't lease the pipe smokers, they tried penguin feathers. However bad the whiff, it was far worse for those who did not smoke at all.
It took Shackleton four attempts to break through ice and reach them from South Georgia. The successful raft was a steam trawler loaned by the Chilean government and crewed by Chilean navy volunteers. The survivors were so exhausted that they couldn't even raise a cheer. But their leader had not lost a single man.
The expedition came home to a different world of war, upheaval in Ireland and conscription into the armed forces. Tim MacCarthy was to be one of three Endurance crew to lose his life in the fighting; Shackleton, who was also called up, returned to Antarctica in 1922. It was to be his last trip. He died of heart failure at the age of 47.
As for Crean, he came back from service in Archangel to marry his school pal, Ellen Herlihy. They had two daughters, and opened a pub in Annascaul which they named the South Pole Inn. He shunned journalists, rarely talked of his experiences, - but his eldest daughter, Mrs Mary Crean O Brien, recalls that he did have frozen ears. Tragically, lie was to die of a perforated appendix in his early 60s in 1938.
Now a grandmother herself in Tralee, Mrs Crean O'Brien 78 still regrets that she didn't pester her father more. "We were teenagers. We never asked him enough about what he had been through. But she has named her house "Terra Nova". After her dad's first Antarctic ship.