The Kerry man who went south
Tom Crean
Tom Crean was born in 1877 in Annascaul, a few hills west of here. He joined the Royal Navy at fifteen, and by his late twenties had been to Antarctica with Scott on the Discovery, then again on the Terra Nova — where he walked thirty-five miles alone across the Ross Ice Shelf to save a dying colleague — then south a third time with Shackleton on the Endurance. He came home, opened a pub in Annascaul, and barely talked about any of it. The bronze on Fenit harbour shows him in his polar gear, looking out across Tralee Bay.
The lighthouse on the rock
Little Samphire Island
The white tower out in the bay was built in 1854 to mark the deepwater channel into Fenit. A keeper and his family lived on the rock for a century, raising children between supply boats. It was automated in 1954 and they all came ashore. The light still flashes every five seconds. The rock is two acres, the tower is fifteen metres, and on a calm day you can kayak around it in twenty minutes.
Tralee Bay shellfish
Oysters out of the bay
Tralee Bay grows oysters — the deep, sheltered, brackish water that runs in past Fenit is exactly what they like. The trestles are visible at low tide off the village. Most of what is grown leaves on a refrigerated lorry; some of it stops at The Oyster Tavern up the road. Eat them where they came from. They will not taste like this anywhere else.