In the footsteps of Shackleton

In 1908, Ernest Shackleton and his team set off to explore the Antarctic "terra incognita"... Towards the end of last year, some of their descendants embarked on an expedition to retrace Shackleton's footsteps.

There is a nice arcticle and video clips from the BBC here and their expedition is the subject of this evening's Timewatch at 8.40pm on BBC2.

Year 13 meet an Antarctic explorer...

If you were asked to name a famous Antarctic explorer, chances are it might be Robert Falcon Scott or Ernest Shackleton... But probably not this man!

The Yr 13 geographers though, were lucky enough to "meet" Tom Crean - sometimes referred to as the "Unsung Hero" of Polar exploration, via a videoconference with the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich last week.

Crean, who grew up near Annascaul, a small village in Co. Kerry, was part of three major South Pole expeditions - Discovery and Terra Nova with Scott, and Endurance with Shackleton. Unlike Scott and Shackleton, who both died on expeditions, however, Crean returned to Annascaul, where he married Nell and opened a pub called the South Pole Inn. He died in Annascaul in 1938, from a burst appendix...