Explorer spirit lives on at South Pole Inn

A COSY little pub in the Dingle Peninsula might be a long, long way from the South Pole but the achievements of the first Irish team to reach the southernmost point on earth were celebrated there, last night.

Customers raised their glasses in the South Pole Inn, Annascaul, which was once owned by the renowned explorer, Tom Crean.

Crean, a local man who took part in three Antarctic expeditions in the first two decades of the 20th century, opened the premises in 1927. Though it has changed hands a number of times in the past 80 years, the unmistakable name still stands out on the blue and white-painted public house at the bottom of the village.