About The Author of Tom Crean

For eleven years, Salford born author Tim Foley has been the driving force of a campaign to honour Tom Crean, an Irish explorer who served under Captain Robert Falcon Scott and Sir Ernest Shackleton on three pioneering expeditions to Antarctica in the early part of the 20th century.

Having spent his early career in the building trade, Tim began writing via his own online consumer advice forum in 1999. As a result, he was signed up by ITV to act as Project Consultant on popular television DIY shows such as ITV’s Better Homes, followed by Granada’s 60 Minute Makeover. Tim was then commissioned to take a lead role in a two-part special for ITV’s Tonight With Trevor McDonald. In a sociopolitical experiment that subsequently rendered the project a great success, transforming a derelict Liverpool terraced house into a fully refurbished home at a fraction of the cost of its proposed demolition and the rehousing of its neighbourhood community.

From a young age Tim had been left fascinated by the heroic tales of Tom Crean, whose story he discovered while spending much of his time in his father’s birthplace near Castlemaine in County Kerry, Ireland.

Over the course of his career, a number of publications have featured Tim’s articles and in 2017 he decided to utilise his many years of research and study into the life of Tom Crean to compile a biography about Tom Crean.

In 2010, Tim created a Facebook campaign dedicated to achieving official recognition for the Annascaul born explorer.

The campaign and media platforms are today supported by a growing worldwide audience and in February 2018, Tim’s petition for a new Irish Naval Flagship to be named in honour of Tom Crean, signed by over 10,000 supporters, was formally received by the Irish Minister for Defence at Government Buildings in Dublin. The campaign for Crean’s national recognition bore fruit in January 2021 when it was announced that a government funded research vessel was to be named RV Tom Crean in his honour. It was a great victory for over 50,000 worldwide supporters after a proposal to name the vessel in honour of Crean was put forward to the Marine Institute by Lorcán Ó Cinnéide who had been among the very first signatories to put his name to the petition back in 2016.

During the course of Tim’s research for his biography of Tom Crean, he discovered that a previous account of Crean’s life, written by Michael Smith, contained a number of inaccuracies and was missing significant sections of Crean’s life and career. After submitting his entire research, it was confirmed in March 2021, that the Royal Irish Academy had, in light of the sources Tim provided, substantially Tom Crean’s story in the internationally recognised Dictionary of Irish Biography.

Because of my research Tom Crean's story has changed so do please share the posts.

  

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