The Kinsale explorers are being featured alongside six other men who were all members of various challenging and pioneering expeditions. The other adventurers being honoured include Kildare born Ernest Shackleton, leader of the expedition which included Tom Crean and Timothy McCarthy while Mortimer sailed with Scott. Near neighbours Patrick Keohane from Courtmacsherry and Robert Forde from Bandon are being honoured and others include Cork man, Edward Bransfield from Ballinacurra and Francis Crozier from County Down. 

The McCarthys came from Lower Cove where they lived on a small holding and fished from the Kinsale Hookers. Mortimer was the first to embark on his sea-going career first on cargo boats and then sailing with Scott, first on the Discovery and then on the Terra Nova. Unfortunately, both expeditions ended in failure but on return to the UK, where he was living, he was presented with the Polar Medal. He visited his home in Kinsale on a number of occasions and donated the town a harpoon gun which is still exhibited in the Regional Museum. He settled in Littleton in New Zealand but his family retained their links with Kinsale, visiting the site of their father’s home at Lower Cove on a number of times.

Unfortunately, Timothy’s life ended at an early age, a victim of the Great War. After he returned to England, he joined the Naranngasset and sailed to the U.S. This ship was in the vicinity of the site of the sinking of the Lusitania in May 1915 and it suffered the same fate 40 miles south of the Old Head and the whole crew was lost. He is best known for his exploits on the Jonathon Caird when he was one of the crew picked by Shackleton for the hazardous journey to South Georgia and was honoured by having a mountain named after him. His time with Shackleton has been detailed in many books and the lives of the brothers have been told  in a number of articles in the Kinsale Record, available on line on the County Library website. In 2001 busts of the brothers (as seen below) were unveiled in Kinsale in the presence of Mortimer’s son and grandson as well as relatives of Tom Crean, Scott and Shackleton.

The stamps are on sale from today on the An Post website.