Clodagh Finn: Time to bring the brilliant sisters of famous men into the limelight

Sad irony in knowing that Ernest Shackleton’s exploration of the southernmost tip of the world is widely remembered while his sisters' adventuring days, at the opposite pole, and in warn-torn Europe and Canada, passed almost completely under the radar

Her sister Kathleen volunteered to join brother Ernest on his final expedition, but Eleanor, above, was also a pioneer, nursing the war wounded across Europe and Canada. Picture: Courtesy of the Greene family

Last month, An Post issued a beautiful collection of stamps to celebrate eight Irish Antarctic explorers, or “ice men” as the series poetically calls them, who all played a significant role in the golden age of Antarctic exploration from the 1800s to early 1900s.

Two of them are already household names — Ernest Shackleton, Kildare, and Tom Crean, Kerry — and it is wonderful to be introduced to six others who may not be as widely known. Five are from Co Cork: Edward Bransfield, Patrick Keohane, Robert Forde and brothers Mortimer and Tim McCarthy, while the sixth is Francis Crozier from Co Down.