Tom Crean (explorer) - Later Life

Later Life

After returning to Britain in November 1916, Crean resumed naval duties. On 15 December 1916 he was promoted to the rank of warrant officer (as a boatswain), in recognition of his service on the Endurance, and was awarded his third Polar Medal. On 5 September 1917 Crean married Ellen Herlihy of Annascaul. For the remainder of the First World War he served first at the Chatham barracks, and then in the depot ship Colleen at Queenstown, Ireland.

In early 1920, Shackleton was organising another Antarctic expedition, later to be known as the Shackleton-Rowett Expedition. He invited Crean to join him, along with other officers from the Endurance. By this time, however, Crean was married, his second daughter had arrived, and he had plans to open a business following his naval career. He turned down Shackleton's invitation.

On his last naval assignment, with Hecla, Crean suffered a bad fall which caused lasting effects to his vision. As a result, he was retired on medical grounds on 24 March 1920. He and Ellen opened a small public house in Annascaul, which he called the South Pole Inn. The couple had three daughters, Mary, Kate, and Eileen, although Kate died when she was four years old.

On 25th April 1920 Crean's brother, Cornelius, a policeman in the Royal Irish Constabulary was killed along with another RIC officer in an Irish Republican Army (IRA) ambush in Ballinspittle, County Cork during the Irish War of Independence.

Throughout his life, Crean remained an extremely modest man. When he returned to Kerry, he put all of his medals away and never again spoke about his experiences in the Antarctic. Indeed, there is no reliable evidence of Crean giving any interviews to the press. It has been speculated that this may have been because Kerry had long been a centre for Irish Republicanism, and it would have been inappropriate for an Irishman to speak of his achievements on British polar expeditions. In fact, Crean and his family were once the victims of a Black and Tan (British paramilitary) raid during the War of Independence. The raiders ransacked his property and the Creans felt threatened until the Black and Tans happened across a framed photo of Crean in Royal Navy dress uniform and medals. They then left his inn.

In 1938 Crean became ill with a burst appendix. He was taken to the nearest hospital in Tralee, but as no surgeon was available to operate, he was transferred to the Bon Secours Hospital in Cork where his appendix was removed. Because the operation had been delayed, an infection developed, and after a week in the hospital he died on 27 July 1938, shortly after his sixty-first birthday. He was buried in his family's tomb at the cemetery in Ballynacourty.

Crean is commemorated in at least two place names: Mount Crean 8,630 feet (2,630 m) in Victoria Land, and the Crean Glacier on South Georgia. A one-man play, Tom Crean – Antarctic Explorer, has been widely performed since 2001 by its author Aidan Dooley, including a special showing at the South Pole Inn, Annascaul, in October 2001. Present were Crean's daughters, Eileen and Mary, both in their 80s. Apparently he never told them his stories; according to Eileen: "He put his medals and his sword in a box ... and that was that. He was a very humble man".

In 2011, an Irish brewery, The Dingle Brewing Company, named a lager after the explorer. The "Endurance Brewing Company" in Colorado, USA, uses a likeness of Crean on its "Arctica Pale Ale" product.