Irish Polar Institute honour Harry McNish

A FEW months ago on my return from a long walk up the country, feeling damp and tired I soaked in a hot bath then afterwards turned on the TV to catch up with the Saturday football scores—mainly to see how Celtic were faring in one of their rare Saturday games.

There was a documentary on about Shackleton’s South Pole expedition in 1914. I became totally engrossed in it forgetting the football, watching all the hardships they encountered and surmounted, and the resilience of the man as every time they overcame an obstacle another would emerge even greater. After it finished I resolved to read up on Shackleton and find out what drove him to pursue his dreams in this harsh unforgiving high latitude climate. Little did I know how things would develop.

About a month later I was invited over to Dungarvan in County Waterford by my youngest son Gerald’s partner Emma and her family to celebrate the birth of Gerry and Emma’s daughter—and my beautiful grand-daughter—Eabha.

Coming from such a lovely place and on the sea Emma’s father, Donal, and Aunt Màire are sailors. As I found out later—not from them—both are held in high regard for their sailing skills, prowess and achievements. My wife and I had a great time in Dungarvan and surrounding areas capped with few days at my sister’s in Limerick.

On my return to Scotland I recieved a call from Màire asking me if I could help in locating a relative of a Harry (Chippy) McNish who was the ship’s carpenter on the 1914-16 ill-fated Shackleton expedition to the South Pole (above). Màire informed me that she was the chairperson—now president—of the Irish Polar Institute and they were trying to contact a great-nephew of McNish. The only leads they had was that he was last heard of in Fairlie, North Ayrshire, working as a painter and an article about him in The Scotsman newspaper. She went on to explain that Chippy was one of the few members of the crew not to have recieved the Polar Medal and that the Irish Polar Institute were going to award the medal posthumously at their inaugural dinner to one of his relations as it was undoubtedly because of Harry McNish that the crew were rescued.

McNish had a strained relationship with Shackleton, refusing to pull the lifeboat over the rough jagged ice of the Antarctic as Shackleton instructed, as it would damage it and render it useless if and when they reached Elephant Island to sail the 700 mile voyage to South Georgia across rough and treacherous seas.

Their relationship was further strained by Shackleton shooting Chippy’s cat to conserve food. Chippy and Shackleton had words several times and even though later Shackleton admitted Chippy was right, he withheld the polar medal.

When reaching Elephant Island, Chippy carried out repairs and modifications to the Iifeboat—named the James Caird after a Dundee sponsor of the expedition—practically rebuilding it to enable it to cope with whatever the weather and the treacherous Weddell Sea threw at them.

It took me a couple of days contacting a few painting businesses in the Largs and Fairlie area, but nobody knew of John McNish. I also contacted a few newspapers that previously had articles on the part Chippy played in the survival of the crew I finally got in touch with a James Douglas Hamilton, also an Antarctic explorer and record holding rower that had championed the cause of Chippy and befriended the family in pursuit of him being awarded the Polar Medal.

The result was that Harry Chippy McNish’s great grand-nephew, John McNish, received the posthumous award of the Irish Polar Medal (above top) at their inaugural dinner in Dun Laoghaire National Yacht Club earlier this year, finally putting a great wrong right, some 100 years later.

The Irish Polar Institute was founded in 2025 by Paddy Barry, Jarlath Cunnane, Màire Breathnach and a few other courageous dedicated, unassuming and extremely friendly high-latitude explorers to honour and acknowledge exceptional feats of bravery and achievement by unsung and forgotten heroes of the Antarctic and Artic.

Barry, Cunnane and a few others attempted the Shackelton sail from Elephant Island over the Weddell Sea to South Georgia and then the trek over the mountain to the whaling station at the other side of the islands. Unfortunately their boat—the Tom Cream, named after a Kerryman that sailed with Shackleton—turned over several times and they had to be picked up by a satellite boat and transported to South Georgia where they completed the trek over the mountain to the whaleing station at the other side of island. It’s a tough arduous journey, but as well as being a top class sailor you also need to be lucky with the weather, unfortunately they were not.

I was honoured to be invited to attend the inaugural dinner and presentation of the Irish Polar Medal. There were many distinguished guests from the Irish, Scottish and English sailing and high-latitude exploring fraternity present, but the only medal on show was the one awarded to John McNish in honour of his great uncle, Harry (Chippy) McNish.