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Tom Crean Book – 'Crean – The Extraordinary Life Of An Irish Hero'

Rediscover an Irish Hero

Tom Crean Book – 'Crean – The Extraordinary Life Of An Irish Hero'

Rediscover an Irish Hero

Am I Related to Tom Crean? A Genealogical Guide to the Crean Family Tree
Family History & Genealogy

Am I Related to Tom Crean? A Genealogical Guide

Compiled by Dr Jennifer FitzGerald & Tim Foley Updated June 2026 18 min read

Among the growing numbers of people hungry for more information about Tom Crean's family, are those seeking to learn whether they themselves may have a family connection to him. This guide, compiled by genealogist Dr Jennifer FitzGerald after extensive archival research, traces Tom Crean's siblings, parents, and extended family across Annascaul and the wider Dingle Peninsula.

In This Guide
  1. Tom Crean's Siblings
  2. Tom Crean's Father's Family
  3. Tom Crean's Mother's Family
  4. Other Relatives of Hugh Crean
  5. Relatives of Mary Connell
  6. Researching Your Own Ancestry

Tracing ancestors is a laborious and often confusing task, and when writing up the Tom Crean biography, I concentrated my own research efforts on Tom Crean and his siblings. Through an acquaintance I heard about the work in this area by Dr Jennifer FitzGerald, and we corresponded to swap what we had both discovered about Tom Crean's immediate relatives. Jennifer's work, however, goes far beyond my own research, and I'm delighted to be able to publish it here.

This post is a comprehensive means of determining a link for those who may be related to him. For those who aren't, it's a dedicated study of family documentation that provides a fascinating insight into the origins and spread of Tom Crean's family.

Tom Crean's Siblings

Tom Crean's parents were Patrick H. Crean (b. c. 1843, d. between 1917–1924) and Catherine Courtney/Cournane (b. c. 1844, d. 15 Sep. 1924). They married on 29 Jan. 1867 in Annascaul (Source: NLI Catholic Parish Registers) and farmed at Gortacurraun, in the civil parish of Ballynacourty, near Annascaul on the Dingle Peninsula. They had 11 children.

1. Hugh Crean, b. 7 Nov. 1867, Gortacurraun, d. 24 Mar 1908, Gortacurraun, married on 18 Feb. 1896 Johanna Connor, b. 16 Jan. 1871, Derrygorman, Annascaul, d. 31 Mar 1958, Gortacurraun.

Hugh had his own farm at Gortacurraun; he and Johanna had 8 children: Catherine Crean (b. 1896); Mary Crean (b. 1898, d. 1962), who married Stephen Galvin and whose descendants remained at Gortacurraun into the early 2000s; Johanna Crean (b. 1900), who emigrated to New York in 1920; Bridget Crean (b. 1901, d. 1980), who married Michael Mahony and settled in Weymouth, Massachusetts; Patrick Crean (b. 1903, d. 1918 of heart failure); Ellen Crean (b. 1905), who emigrated to Montreal to stay with her uncle Martin Crean; and Margaret Gertrude Crean (b. 1907, d. 2005), who also settled in Weymouth, Massachusetts.

Hugh Crean died suddenly of pneumonia in 1908; his wife Johanna continued to run the farm with the help of Crean relatives and her son Patrick, designated 'farmer' when he died of heart failure at just 15. The farm passed to Hugh's daughter Mary and her husband Stephen Galvin.

2. Mary Crean, b. 6 Mar. 1869, Gortacurraun. Still unmarried and living with her parents in 1911, at the age of 42; her death certificate has not yet been located. The 1901 Census lists her as a servant at the home of Maurice FitzGerald of Drom West, Cloghane.

3. John Crean, b. 14 June 1870, Gortacurraun. No further information has yet come to light.

4. Cornelius Crean, b. 27 Sep 1871, Gortacurraun, d. 25 Apr 1920, Ballinaspittle, Co. Cork, married on 11 Sep. 1906 Annie Stanton, b. 8 Nov 1877, Knockglass, Co. Cork, d. 22 May 1944, Crosshaven, Co. Cork. They had one son, William Patrick Crean (b. 1907, d. 1982).

A dramatic end: Cornelius joined the Royal Irish Constabulary and was stationed, as was the rule, outside his native county. As a sergeant leading a three-man patrol in Cork, he was ambushed by the Irish Republican Army and killed alongside Constable McGoldrick. Read the full account of Cornelius's death at Upton.

5. Daniel Crean, b. 15 Mar. 1873, Gortacurraun, d. 3 June 1932, Gortacurraun, married on 3 Feb. 1912 Margaret Curran, b. 1878, Minard East, d. 18 Jan. 1947, Gortacurraun. They had at least 4 children: Patrick (b. 1913), Kathleen (b. 1914), Hugh (b. 1916), and Mary (b. 1918). Daniel lived with his parents and took over the Gortacurraun farm on his father's death.

6. Patrick Crean, b. 24 Mar. 1875, Gortacurraun. No further information has yet come to light.

7. Thomas Crean, bap. 16 Feb. 1877, Gortacurraun; civil registration 25 Feb. 1877, d. 27 Jul 1938, Bons Secours Hospital, Cork — the explorer himself. Married 5 Sep. 1917 Ellen Herlihy, b. 9 May 1891, Ballyvelly, Tralee, d. 2 Jan. 1968, Annascaul. They had three daughters: Mary (b. 1918, d. 2018), Catherine (b. 1920, d. 1924), and Eileen (b. 1922, d. 2004).

A baptismal puzzle: Tom's baptismal record actually names the child 'Johanna', likely a transcription error — the previous entry on the register was also a Johanna, and the letterforms of 'T' and 'J' could easily be confused. Read the full investigation into Tom Crean's true birthdate.

8. Michael Crean, bap. 14 Mar. 1879, Gortacurraun. Emigrated aboard the SS Commonwealth, arriving in Boston on 20 Jun 1901. Commonly believed to have gone to sea and lost with a ship, though no documentary evidence of this has come to light.

9. Johanna (Hannah) Crean, bap. 14 Mar. 1879, Gortacurraun, d. 2 Jun 1943, Glen Minard, Lispole, married on 22 Feb. 1908 Thomas Devane, b. c. 1874, d. 22 May 1944. They had at least 7 children, including Michael, Mary, Catherine, Patrick, Maurice, Hanna, and John Devane.

10. Martin Crean, b. 15 Mar 1883, Gortacurraun, d. 7 Oct. 1944, Ottawa General Hospital, Canada. Emigrated to Montreal aboard RMS Virginian in 1912. In 1922 his niece Catherine Crean stayed with him in Montreal during the first stage of her own emigration. He never married.

11. Catherine Crean, b. 28 Aug 1887, Gortacurraun, married on 21 Sep. 1915 Daniel Donovan, an R.I.C. Constable. They had four daughters: Mary (b. 1916), Kathleen (b. 1921), Veronica (b. 1925), and Theresa (b. 1927).

Tom Crean's Father's Family

On their civil marriage certificate, Patrick H. Crean, resident in Ballynasare (Ballynasare Beg), names his father as Hugh Crean, a farmer of the same place. Several children were born to Hugh Crean and his wife Mary Connell of Ballynasare Beg between 1848 and 1865 — but Patrick, born c. 1843, is not among them. Hugh and Mary were not natives of Ballynasare; they married on 23 Feb. 1840 in Keelballylahive near Castlegregory, where their daughter Mary was baptized in 1842. Patrick was likely born while his parents still lived in Keelballylahive, or shortly after their move.

Hugh Crean's 1893 death certificate gives his age as 88, suggesting a birth around 1805. Mary Connell died in 1881 at 60, suggesting a birth around 1821.

Hugh and Mary had the following children:

1. Mary Crean, bap. 24 April 1842, Keelballylahive, d. 7 Oct. 1865, Gortacurraun, married James Mannix of Analack. They had three children, but Mary died of puerperal fever days after the birth of her son Thomas. James remarried and had 7 more children before dying of typhoid fever in 1879, which also claimed his daughter Mary Mannix.

2. Patrick H. Crean — Tom Crean's father (see 'Tom Crean's Siblings' above).

3. John Crean, bap. 26 Oct. 1848, Ballynasare Beg. No further information has yet come to light.

4. Cornelius Crean, bap. 17 Mar 1851, Ballynasare Beg, d. 21 Feb. 1910, married Bridget Dowd. He took over his father's farm and had at least 5 children, including Hugh Crean, who inherited the Ballynasare Beg farm and was killed by a train in 1921 at the age of 35.

5. Hugh Crean, bap. 14 Apr. 1853, Ballynasare Beg, married Mary Begley. He acquired a farm at Commons of Milltown, near Dingle, from the Curran family when they emigrated to Boston c. 1892. Hugh and Mary had no children.

6. Johanna Crean, bap. 29 Apr 1855, d. 30 Oct. 1945, Gortacurraun, married Maurice Curran. They had 7 children, five of whom emigrated to Holyoke, Massachusetts, including Patrick, Jeremiah (who took over the Gortacurraun farm), Catherine, Cornelius, Mary, John, and Margaret Curran.

7. Ellen Crean, b. c. 1858, Ballynasare Beg, d. 10 May 1883, married Michael Currane. Ellen died of typhus just three and a half months after her wedding.

8. Margaret Crean, bap. 13 June 1860, Ballynasare Beg, emigrated to the US in 1892, married Patrick Curran in Holyoke, Massachusetts. No children have yet been traced.

9. Catherine Crean, b. 7 Feb. 1863, Ballynasare Beg, d. 10 Apr 1933, married John Lynch, a farmer, publican and district councillor. They had at least 11 children, whose descendants settled across the Smerwick Harbour area of the Dingle Peninsula.

10. Bridget Crean, b. 17 Feb. 1865, Ballynasare Beg, d. 15 Oct. 1865, of croup, aged just one day old.

Tom Crean's Mother's Family

Tom's mother, Catherine Cournane (also recorded as Courney or Courtney), was born around 1839–1844. Her civil marriage certificate names her father as John Courney, farmer, with Edmund Cournane as a witness. Ballynacourty parish holds no baptismal records for the period 19 Mar. 1839 to 2 Oct. 1851, meaning Catherine is likely to have been born and baptized in that gap — a frustrating hole for genealogists.

Dr FitzGerald investigated several candidate Catherine Cournanes across the parishes of Castlegregory, Dingle, and Ballyferriter, but none can be confirmed with certainty as Tom Crean's mother. Her exact parentage remains one of the unresolved threads in the family's history.

Other Relatives of Hugh Crean (and thus Tom Crean)

In Keelballylahive: family lore holds that Jeremiah Crean (1821–1891) of Keelballylahive was Hugh's brother. After Hugh left for Ballynasare Beg, Jeremiah's line continued farming the same land for generations — it is still farmed today by his great-great-grandson. Jeremiah's grandson, Diarmuid Crean of Annascaul, was a close second cousin and lifelong friend of Tom Crean after Tom's Navy retirement.

A likely friendship traced through family: Diarmuid's sister Mollie married naval pensioner John Evans of Minard, who enlisted in the Navy at the same coastguard station as Tom, two months after him. Given their shared age and locality, it's likely the two were lifelong friends independently of the family connection.

In Ballynasare and Banogue: Creans were already established in the area before Hugh arrived in the 1840s, including a Thomas Crean who leased land in both Banogue South and North — though no documentary link confirms a family connection to Hugh's line.

Relatives of Mary Connell (and thus Tom Crean)

No baptismal record survives for Hugh Crean's wife, Mary Connell, but her likely siblings can be traced through witnesses and godparents at nearby Connell weddings and baptisms around Keelballylahive: Maurice Connell, John Connell, Catherine Connell, and Elizabeth Connell all appear connected through overlapping witnesses with the Crean and McCarthy families of the same townlands.

My thanks to Jennifer for compiling this remarkable piece of research on Tom Crean's family. I'm sure it will prove invaluable to people seeking more information on their own family roots — and if you discover you are related to Tom Crean through any of this family, do let us know in the comments.

Researching Your Own Ancestry

Compilation of civil birth records is an ongoing task, and at the time of writing, only births registered up to 1921 are available online. Births registered after that date rely on family knowledge to fill remaining gaps or can be purchased via HSE Civil Registration Service.

Start your own research: three excellent free resources for tracing Irish ancestry are Irish Genealogy (Church and Civil records for births, marriages and deaths), the National Library of Ireland's Catholic Parish Registers, and the Irish Census (1901/1911/1926, plus earlier fragments).
Support the Work

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The Definitive Biographies

For the complete story of Tom Crean — including six and a half years of Naval career documented for the first time — both books are available to order now.

Crean: The Extraordinary Life of an Irish Hero, biography by Tim Foley Tom The Mighty Explorer, children's book about Tom Crean by Tim Foley
Find out more & buy the books About the author