A Kerry mountaineer aims to become the first Irishman to walk to the South Pole as part of an international expedition which is currently in Antarctica.
Mike Barry (50) from Tralee, is a member of the International South Pole Expedition 2003/2004 which is over 500 miles from its destination.
A member of three major Himalayan expeditions, including the first and successful Irish attempt on Mount Everest in 1993, Barry is fulfilling a long-held ambition to trek in the boot steps of fellow Kerryman, Tom Crean, and complete the journey that Crean always wanted to make.
The expedition is covering up to 13 miles a day on foot and on skis, having set out from Hercules inlet on the edge of the Antarctic ice cap earlier this month.
The group expects to reach the South Pole at an altitude of 2,800 metres in about 55 to 60 days.
The leader is the only woman among the five - US/Canadian polar traveller and guide Matty McNair, who has already been to the South Pole once, and who led the first female expedition to the North Pole in 1997.
Trekking with Barry and McNair are three Englishmen - Hong Kong-based pilot Ray Middleton (43), financial publisher and former British army officer, Alex Blyth (42) and commercial lawyer Ian Morpeth (49).
Mike Barry is director of the renewable energy company, Saorgus Energy, which leased the Derrybrien wind farm site in south Galway to the ESB subsidiary, Hibernian Wind Energy.
Barry is described by colleagues as someone who is always "either preparing for an expedition, on an expedition or recovering from an expedition".
Apart from his Himalayan experiences, Barry has climbed in South America and recorded the first successful Irish ascent of Aconcagua.
This is his second trip to Antarctica.
He was a member of South Aris, the 1997 Irish Antarctic expedition that retraced Ernest Shackleton's famous 1916 Antarctic escape voyage, on which Kerry explorer Tom Crean played a key role.
Earlier this year, Barry participated in an Irish mountaineering expedition to the Lemon Range in Greenland.
Barry is financing his share of the expedition's costs from his own resources, but hopes to raise funds for Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin, Dublin, from a post-expedition lecture and slide tour.
Tom Crean, a farmer's son from the Dingle peninsula in Co Kerry, spent more time in the Southern Hemisphere than either Scott or Shackleton - both of whom recruited the Kerryman for their polar adventures.
Crean was bitterly disappointed when sent back by Scott just 150 miles from the South Pole, and was a member of the search party that found Scott's body on November 12th, 1912.
He was one of five men who accompanied Sir Ernest Shackleton on the dramatic 800 miles sea rescue across the Southern Ocean when their ship, the Endurance, became trapped in ice in 1915.
Last Friday night, 200 people attended a mid-winter celebration of Crean's life in Tralee, which was hosted by the Tom Crean Society.
